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SEVEN YEARS' HARD 



BY 

RICHARD FREE 

AUTHOR OF U A CRY FROM THE DARKNESS ' 



" I spoke as I saw." 



NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

1905 

All rights re saved 



I» v $ 




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Printed in Great Britain 






SEVEN YEARS' HARD 



TO MY BROTHER 

Hard-handed Brother, stunted and warped with toil, 
Thy stolid face, thy dull, unseeing eyes, 
Thy lips too stern and shut for moans or sighs, 
Thy very flesh defiled with daily moil 
Fill me with shame and pity. Son of the soil, 

Helpless and hopeless, spent in the scuffle of life, — 
Thou, with thy little ones and the pale, patient wife, 
What's left to thee but the submissive smile 
That glows, like the last flash of dying day, 

Kindly but coldly, rare and yet ever rarer ? 
" Let be ! " thou criest. " Say that I pinch to pay 
The weekly rent, the cupboard growing barer, 
My belly emptier — why, what's the odds ? " 
And thus thy great calm soul is one with God's. 



The author begs to acknowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Francis 
Day, and Hunter, for their kind permission in allowing him to 
quote the words of the songs marked with an asterisk in 
Chapter VI., and to Messrs. Charles Sheard and Co., Messrs. 
Feldham, Bertram and Co., the Proprietors of the News of the 
World, and Mr. Richard F. W. Maynard, for the others that are 
quoted. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

A WORD TO THE READER ix 



PROLOGUE xiii 

CHAPTER I 

A CITY OF DESOLATION I 

CHAPTER II 

THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 28 

CHAPTER III 
VICES 57 

CHAPTER IV 

VIRTUES 83 

CHAPTER V 

LIMITATIONS 109 

CHAPTER VI 

RECREATIONS 1 32 

CHAPTER VII 

WORK AND WAGE l6l 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 1 86 

CHAPTER IX 

SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 206 

CHAPTER X 

CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 238 

EPILOGUE 258 



A WORD TO THE READER 

This book is a human document. It professes to be 
no more ; it claims to be no less. The persons who 
figure in it are living, breathing realities, not creations of 
pen and inkpot. The experiences recorded in it are 
history, not myth, and have been cast into mould piping- 
hot from the memory. 

Being a simple record of fact, this book seeks neither 
to flatter nor to disparage. Therefore, parts of it may 
be found unpalatable ; while other parts, let us hope, 
will be found palatable. The mixture should surprise 
no one. Human life is made up in that way, simply 
because human life is fact and not fiction. I have not 
written a novel, but a history. 

I believe experience is given us to be used. I believe 
that facts have their lessons, even for the humblest. In 
so far as facts are faithfully recorded, they are valuable. 
They are valueless only when they are glossed over or 
misrepresented. It is certain that false inferences may 
be drawn from true facts ; it is equally certain that the 
facts remain. They are " stubborn things," very 



x A WORD TO THE READER 

tenacious of life ; and, one day, they will inevitably 
yield their secret. Meantime, the most that any of us 
can do is to gather them, question them, and honestly 
tell the world what we believe to be their answers. 

In this book I have used the terms "East End," 
" East-ender M in the accepted sense. Let any reader 
who finds himself at variance with statements regarding 
the one or the other, remember that "the exception 
proves the rule." No one is more alive than I to the 
fact that some of the East End is West End in all but 
name, even as many West-enders may be East-enders at 
heart. But for the practical purpose in hand the words 
must connote specific qualities, and no connotation 
could be better, or more generally accurate, than the 
popular one. 

This book has been put together in odd moments of a 
busy life. Chapters of it have been written at the fag- 
ends of laborious days ; paragraphs, and even single 
sentences of it, have been violently sandwiched between 
preaching and scrubbing, choir-training and sing-song 
dancing-classes and prayers for the dying. Moreover, 
it has not been compiled in that sweet solitude so dear 
to the literary expert. The smells of fried fish, boiling 
soap, and stewing cocoanuts have been aggressively 
obvious ; the cries and screams of children, filled with 
the wild joy of life or its wilder pain, have formed a kind 
of running accompaniment to my theme; while my 
auditory nerve has been kept painfully alert by the 
piano-organist, the vendor of shrimps, the muffin-man, 



A WORD TO THE READER xi 

the seller of songs (vocally illustrated), the gentleman in 
drink, and the lady in a passion. But why have I had 
to endure the unspeakable conversation of certain 
persons who shall be nameless, and who, I feel sure, did 
not mean to be objectionable, but were? And, in its 
usual parrot-fashion, echo answers, " Why ? " 



PROLOGUE 

" I AM tired of preaching to silks and satins/' I said ; 
" rags and tatters would be a welcome change." 

The Bishop lifted grave, kind eyes, in which lurked 
more than a suspicion of amusement. 

" I see. The conventionality of civilised society palls 
on you ; you want something more " 

" Real ! " I cried with conviction. The word gave me 
a feeling of bodily and mental vigour such as I had not 
known for many a long month. " Real ! That's it. I 
want to get at the foundation of things, to see human 
nature without its paint and gew-gaws ; I want to face 
up to it, understand it, learn my lesson from it." 

Looking back over the seven years that have passed 
since these words were uttered, it seems to me that I 
was very young then ; and it also seems to me, as I 
write, that I am quite old now. For, if experience ages 
us, then twenty years have passed since that memorable 
day on which I sat in a dim little study in the heart of 
the City, and gazed on the scholarly face of George 
Forrest Browne, Bishop of Stepney. 

The suspicion of amusement in the Bishop's eyes 



xiv PROLOGUE 

deepened. He paused awhile, as if weighing something 
in his mind. Then he said, with the peculiar force and 
directness so characteristic of him — 

" You want an unconventional sphere of labour ; you 
can have it. You want to see human nature in its 
primitive condition ; your wish can be gratified. At 
this very moment I need a man for pioneering missionary 
work. It will be rough ; it will be hard ; it will be dis- 
couraging. There is no house to live in ; there is no 
church to worship in ; there is no endowment, or fund, 
or anything of that kind to draw upon for working 
expenses. I think I can secure you a stipend of ^150 
a year, and I know I can put my hand on money for 
building purposes. Well ? " 

I began to feel somewhat uncomfortable. The study 
suddenly grew gloomy, the air chilly. The Bishop 
spoke again — 

" Of course, you know the Isle of Dogs ? " 

Yes. At least, I had heard of the Isle of Dogs. To 
tell truth, a vision of flannels, a light outrigger, broiling 
summer sun, and a purling stream emerged from some- 
where at the back of my mind, recalling halcyon days 
of another period. 

" Yes, I may say I know it/ 5 I continued eagerly. 
" Up river ? Twickenham way ? " 

Back went the Bishop's head, as that lurking suspicion 
of a smile broke at last into audible laughter. 

" Oh dear, no ! Miles away from Twickenham and 
all that Twickenham means. Nothing so attractive, I 



PROLOGUE xv 

assure you. Limehouse ! Millwall ! That's much nearer 
the mark." 

I sat still. It was rather sudden. " Limehouse" con- 
jured up a picture of an impure stream bounded by 
dirty streets ; " Millwall " suggested river mud and long 
levels of decaying vegetation. The Twickenham picture 
was blotted out. 

" Well ? " The Bishop looked at me keenly. 

" I'll go." 

At that moment I was conscious of something like a 
call. I realised that this thing had come to me uninvited, 
unexpected. I wanted work ; work presented itself. 
Not, it is true, in the way I had anticipated, but perhaps 
in a far better way. Another Will than mine seemed to 
be in the business. 

" Yes, I'll go," I repeated with conviction. 

" Perhaps you would like to think it over ? " 

" No. Thank you — but, No. My resolution is taken. 
God helping me, Til do what I can." 

Two minutes later I was in St. Paul's Churchyard, 
looking up at the dome in a dazed w r ay, and vaguely 
conscious that I had entered upon a new phase of my 
life. A sense of elation, hard to define, filled me to 
overflowing. I was sensible of the pressure of the 
Bishop's hand closing over mine in a farewell grip ; I 
was sensible of still another pressure, less tangible, even 
more real, that seemed to be driving me into new 
activities. 



SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

CHAPTER I 

A CITY OF DESOLATION 

Many intelligent people, as I now know, are every 
whit as ignorant of the whereabouts of the Isle of Dogs 
as I was in the autumn of 1896. They have confounded 
it with the Island of Sheppey, with Isleworth, with the 
Isle of Man, and with the Isle of Wight. But, in more 
senses than one, the Isle of Dogs is far removed from 
any of these places. It lies close to the centre of 
London, it is true, snugly ensconced, as it were, in the 
bosom of the Thames between Ratcliff and Blackwali. 
As the crow flies, the cottage in which I live, grandilo- 
quently yclept St. Cuthbert's Lodge, is as nearly as 
possible two miles -from the Tower. The crow would 
be able to take in the position at a glance. He would 
perceive this house, so near to and yet so far from the 
heart of things, in a tangle of masts and chimneys, 
and, being a bird of parts, would doubtless chuckle at 
the thought that his strong wings could bear him, in a 
few delicious moments, over a space that takes the 
human biped a painful hour to traverse. He would see 
that from the Tow r er Bridge the Thames flows for a half-a- 
mile or so in a fairly straight line, trending very slightly 

B 



2 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

to the south, but that below Wapping Old Stairs, at the 
entrance to the Pool immortalised by Mr. Vicat Cole, 
it slowly rises for a good mile and three-quarters, drops 
due south again, gracefully curves away to the east, and 
finally flings up to its original level. The space thus 
enclosed, measuring, roughly, a mile and a-half from 
north to south and a mile from east to west, is known 
as the Isle of Dogs. Anciently, when it formed part of 
Stepney Marsh, it was not even a peninsula ; but now it 
is an island indeed, " entirely surrounded by water," 
the West India Docks enclosing it on the north and 
the river closely hugging it on the other three sides. 

The Isle of Dogs lies near to the heart of the great 
city, yet in many respects it is more remote from it than 
the remotest of suburbs. The difficulty of getting to it 
is almost incredible. Not merely must the ambitious 
traveller struggle with 'bus and train, discovering to his 
horror that the one never by any possible chance fits in 
with the other — such ills are normal : human flesh is 
heir to them everywhere ; but he must reckon with the 
swing bridges, which isolate the Island like the draw- 
bridges of a mediaeval castle. He may be within a 
stone's throw of his destination, he may have a most 
important engagement ; yet he must possess his soul in 
superhuman patience while some great liner passes by 
at a snail's pace, its mighty bulk towering high above 
him, its outlandish name in glittering letters silently 
declaring the unknown country whence it comes. It is 
true that the law provides that the ambitious traveller 
shall not be tried above that he is able, and that the 
opening of the swing bridges shall be strictly regulated ; 
but because there are few people in the Isle of Dogs 
who care, and fewer still who have the courage to 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 3 

complain, the law is flouted, and men bursting with 
business are kept hanging about the quays, kicking 
their heels because the dock authorities are not avail- 
able. 

Nor may the ambitious traveller escape by taking to 
the railway. His very ticket officially informs him that 
the various companies u do not hold themselves respon- 
sible for any delays which may arise in the docks 
through the necessary opening of the swing bridges " ; 
and so the tiny primitive train, drawn by the tiny 
primitive engine locally known as the " Dustbin," whose 
energy is in inverse proportion to its size, may find itself 
stranded on the edge of the dock, snorting weak defiance, 
while some lordly tyrant of ten thousand tons slips from 
her berth with maddening deliberation, and steals down 
to the waiting river. 

Where did the Isle of Dogs get its name? The 
answer is not immediately forthcoming. " Millwall " is 
pretty obvious. Windmills to the number of seven 
once adorned the river wall on the west. A view of old 
London, taken from One Tree Hill in Greenwich Park, 
shows them in company with seven smaller buildings, 
over which they appear to be exercising a discreet 
supervision. Until within a comparatively recent 
period, several of these mills were traceable ; and for 
many years a veteran survivor of the famous seven 
struggled successfully against destiny. Vestiges of this 
mill were visible until quite lately at the Roman Cement 
works, now Barrel's Wharf, which lies close to the site 
of the old Millwall pier ; and its memory was kept 
green, long after its final disappearance, by the ancient 
Windmill Inn to which it gave its name. 

" Poplar," too, which was originally a regal manor in 

B 2 



4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

the parish of Stepney, presents little difficulty, at once 
suggesting the poplar trees which of old grew abund- 
antly in the moist soil of the marsh ; and " Stepney " is 
clearly one with " Steben," as found in Steben Heath and 
Steben Heath Marsh, and survives in Stebondale Street. 
But the Isle of Dogs is a harder nut to crack. What 
had the place to do with dogs ? Some one answers that 
when Court was kept at Greenwich the Royal hounds 
were kennelled there, " which usually making great 
noises, the seamen and others thereupon called the place 
the Isle of Dogs." " But why not have kennelled them 
in Greenwich Park or on Blackheath ? " objects the 
captious critic. 

Another suggestion is " drowned dogs " ; but for what 
reason the wretched animals should have selected the 
Island for a sepulchre is not explained. 

Still sticking to dogs, a third historian has a horrible 
tale to tell. A certain waterman did an unfortunate 
gentleman to death on what was then literally a desert 
island. The dog of the murdered man watched over 
his master's body until driven to cross the river for food, 
but as soon as his hunger was satisfied, back he swam to 
his gruesome vigil. This action, several times repeated, 
at length attracted attention, and the body was dis- 
covered. The animal's obvious antagonism to a certain 
waterman finally fixed the murderer, who confessed to 
the crime, and was executed. 

" Not dogs ! " observes another unconscious humorist ; 
" Ducks ! wild ducks ! " But no proof is forthcoming 
that wild fowl of any kind ever foregathered in the 
place. 

In spite of Dr. Dryasdust, who affirms that in olden 
times the Island was a wilderness of rank grasses, and 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 5 

that the clocks arc of quite recent construction, it has 
been reserved to me to be the proud discoverer of the 
obvious. The Isle of Dogs is, of course, the Isle of 
Docks ! Why not ? 

Talking of derivations reminds me of the curious 
significance of the names of streets hereabouts. Need- 
less to say, the word " Ferry " abounds. We have East 
Ferry Road, West Ferry Road, Deptford Ferry Road, 
and so on. Staple trades appear in Silver Street and 
Lead Street ; the names of the great landlords in 
Glengall Road, Cahir Street, Mellish Street, and Maria 
Street ; those of the little landlords in Elizabeth, Laura, 
and Bradshaw Cottages ; while Crewe Street, Marsh 
Street, Malabar Street, and Cuba Street convey their 
own lessons. 

All down the ages, land and water appear to have 
been engaged in a fierce struggle for the possession of 
the Isle of Dogs, the river constantly encroaching upon 
the foreshore, and the foreshore being as constantly forti- 
fied by embankments and dykes. Before the fifteenth 
century the Island was inhabited ; but most of the build- 
ings then existing were destroyed by the bursting of the 
river bank near the shipyard at Limehouse Hole. When, 
at a later date, the " Mill Wall " was built, the land thus 
enclosed developed into " a fine, rich level for fattening 
cattle," resorted to by breeders from England and the 
Continent. Not only so, but the place actually became 
a kind of hospital, where diseased animals were treated 
to a course of healing grass. The historian waxes warm 
with admiration of the prices fetched by sundry sows, 
cows, and sheep reared on this favoured spot, and in a 
burst of confidence tells of a redoubtable butcher who 
undertook to furnish from the Island a weekly leg of 



6 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

mutton of not less than twenty-eight pounds' weight, 
" or he would have nothing for them ; and he did 
perform it." 

A romantic touch is afforded by the visit of Samuel 
Pepys in the seventeenth century ; and a certain spirit- 
ual significance may be attached to the establishment, at 
an unknown period, of a religious house. 

From a very early date a small stone chapel, connected 
with the Monastery of St. Mary of Graces near the 
Tower, stood, as ruins once testified, in the midst of a 
considerable community. From the number of large 
hooks unearthed it has been inferred that these early 
residents were fishermen ; and the suggestion has been 
made that the hamlet was used as a spiritual retreat or 
as a penal settlement for monks. For many years a 
large building which went under the name of the Chapel 
House stood near the chapel ; and one of the side streets 
of the West Ferry Road still bears the name of Chapel 
House Street. Curiously enough, too, there exists a 
latter-day belief that the Roman Catholics send their 
clergy to the Isle of Dogs by way of penance even unto 
this day. 

It was in the year of the Great Plague — to be exact, on 
July 31st, 1665 — that dear old Pepys paid us a visit. 
He was on his way with Sir George and Lady Carteret 
to their daughter's wedding, and he records the adven- 
ture in his Diary in his own inimitable fashion : — 

" Up ; and very betimes by six o'clock at Deptford, 
and there find Sir G. Carteret, and my Lady ready to go ; 
I being in my new coloured silk suit, and coat trimmed 
with gold buttons and gold broad lace round my hands, 
very rich and fine. By water to the Ferry, where, when 
we come, no coach there ; and tide of ebb so far spent as 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 7 

the horse-boat could not get off on the other side the river 
to bring away the coach. So we were fain to stay there 
in the unlucky Isle of Doggs, in a chill place, the morning 
cool, and wind fresh, above two if not three hours to our 
great discontent." 

It was a peaceful, rural landscape on which Pepys's 
discontented eyes fell that summer morning. There were 
no factories, no docks, no iron-yards to be seen. But 
the seven mills were there, their arms whirling merrily in 
the breeze, and telling forth in creaks and groans the 
mighty works which should be done in this forsaken land 
in days to come. 

11 The unlucky Isle of Doggs ! " Why ? Well, perhaps 
its name and its reputation were not unconnected. Two 
or three hundred years ago, going to the Isle of Dogs 
was not a very different matter from going to the dogs. 
In the seventeenth century, one James Naylor was found 
guilty of blasphemy. When the question of his punish- 
ment was debated in Parliament, one member suggested 
that his tongue should be slit, another that his hair 
should be cutoff, a third that he should be whipped, a fourth 
that he should be sent to the Isle of Dogs. At the end of 
the sixteenth century, Thomas Nash was imprisoned in 
the Fleet for writing a play called " The Isle of Dogs " ; 
and it is well established that persons of evil repute 
were apt to fly thither to evade their creditors. More- 
over, the bodies of pirates gibbeted on the Island, and 
swinging there, a ghastly sight to see, would bring but 
little credit to the " Dogs." At one time the curious 
visitor to Greenwich, by means of the telescope of some 
ancient mariner, could, for a penny or so, get a glimpse 
of these gentlemen as they hung ; but William IV. 
having wisely ordered the unsightly gallows to be 



8 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

removed, the bodies of the felons and the occupation of 
the ancient mariners disappeared at one and the same 
time. 

On a blustering winter evening I arrived in my new- 
domain. Over the perils and dangers of my journeyings 
thither I would fain draw the veil of oblivion. Suffice 
it to say, I arrived. It was not my first visit to the 
East End ; and as I neared my destination, I was 
sensible of certain familiar odours, and recognised the 
river-men in their jerseys and the labourers in their 
corduroys. I passed shops which had an indescribable 
nautical air about them, shops where you can buy com- 
passes, and rope, and paint, and weird oil-skin coats, 
specimens of which dangle aloft, gleaming with out- 
stretched arms, inviting purchasers. All these, and 
more, I had seen before ; but the West Ferry Road was 
a new thing to me ; and as my eyes lighted for the first 
time upon what was soon to become to me the most 
familiar highway in the world, I was conscious of a 
strange feeling of helplessness and loneliness. Had I 
been suddenly spirited to the very ends of the earth, I 
could not have felt more completely isolated. St. Paul's, 
the Nelson Monument, the Houses of Parliament were as 
though they had never been. The dreariness was un- 
speakable. Far as the eye could reach were nothing 
but chimneys and dead walls, dead walls and chimneys, 
mean houses, chimneys, and dead walls. The long, 
curving street, swept by wind and rain, was empty 
save for children in twos and threes playing at the open 
doors, groups of men bolstering up the beer-shops, or 
little knots of women gossiping at the street corners. It 
was a scene of the most utter desolation. 

J3ut, suddenly, as I gazed with a sense of petrification. 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 9 

a blast of sound split the solid silence ; and instantly, as 
it were through the rent, scrambled a hurry and scurry 
of noises, of big bells and little bells, screaming sirens 
and shrill whistles, all clanging and banging, and shriek- 
ing and squeaking, and moaning and groaning, until the 
air seemed thick with wild, wrangling presences, and the 
heart was full of mighty emotions. Yet, still the rain- 
swept road was deserted, save for the playing children 
and the sodden men and the gossiping women. But 
even as I mused on the strangeness of it all, came my 
first great sensation. In a moment, in the twinkling of 
an eye, the empty street swarmed with a motley mass of 
humanity. Women, with hair as white as snow, who had 
been working all day in rooms thick with pernicious dust ; 
boys, black as sweeps, who had been since early morning 
in suffocating engine-rooms, or hurrying from wharf to 
barge laden with sacks of coal-dust ; girls, whose red 
eyes testified to the pungent atmosphere in which they 
had been toiling since dawn, whose hacking coughs bore 
witness to lungs clogged with the deadly off-scourings of 
their labour ; men, rugged, suffering, gaunt, weary with 
every conceivable kind of work, relieving their pent-up 
feelings in coarse jests or blasphemous oaths — down the 
road they swept, like a turbulent, ill-conditioned stream, 
foully begrimed by terrible necessity, yet intended by 
the Creator for cleanliness and purity, a human type of 
the grand old river flowing but a few yards from them, 
whose pure w r aters had become loathsome by human 
selfishness and folly. It was a strange sight. I could 
have laughed at it ; I could have cried at it. It was 
ludicrous ; it was terrific. 

An hour later the wind blew in fitful gusts, driving the 
rain before it in noisy, drenching showers. In the 



io SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

glimmering lamplight an occasional figure could be seen 
bravely heading the rising storm, and hiding from prying 
eyes the precious pot of beer or quartern of gin. From 
a public-house, hard by the river, rose in uncouth song 
the hoarse roar of men ; and, ever and again, the shrill 
treble of women broke a way through by sheer force, 
producing an effect uncanny in the extreme. No music 
this, fair friends, but only noise ; noise of the wildest and 
weirdest, fit symbol of the wild, weird life of these 
brothers and sisters of ours. And to me, as I listened, 
there came a sudden sweep of wind, carrying this howl 
of defiance, — 

" When you get to the end of your life, 
There's nothing to do but die." 

A City of Desolation ! " That was my first fleeting 
impression of Millwall ; that, more or less, has been my 
constant impression during my seven years' residence 
here. I found the place badly lighted, astonishingly 
foul, inconceivably smelly, and miserably bare and life- 
less. A few wretched lamps shed their fitful gleams on 
the prevailing filth, and not infrequently, as if tired of 
trying to make things the least bit cheerful, went out 
altogether. The streets were, as a rule, abominably 
dirty, and only doubtfully clean at the best of times. 
The mud — and oh, heavens, what mud ! — was allowed 
to remain in the gutters for days and even weeks 
together, the authorities contenting themselves with 
sweeping it into miniature mountains and leaving it 
there to rot. Mighty horses, dragging great drays 
behind them, plunged through these muck-heaps, scat- 
tering them hither and thither until road and sidewalk 
were impassable without defilement. The smells, which 



A CITY OF DESOLATION n 

were as pungent and distinct as the forty-and-two of 
Cologne, were rendered barely tolerable by the vicinity 
of the river. 

Ah ! that wonderful old river ! How little we realise 
what we owe to Father Thames, in spite of the persist- 
ence with which we have begrimed and befouled his 
crystal waters ! What a sight for the child standing 
open-mouthed and wide-eyed on its muddy marge ! 
There goes some great merchantman, light as a ball on 
the flood ; there, in its foaming wake, puffs and snorts 
the steam-tug with its queue of bulky barges. Here is 
a pleasure boat, slim and gaudy ; there, a trim electric 
launch ; yonder, beating up against the wind, a fleet of 
swan-like sailing ships, so low in water that the swift 
river rushes over their gunwales, so high in air that the 
tips of their red-brown sails seem to touch the sky. What 
an education ! What an inspiration ! The little East- 
ender starts well in the race of life. The fresh, strong 
air, notwithstanding the stenches with which it is 
impregnated, gives him a certain healthy impetus. He 
starts well. It is the travail and pain of after years 
that send him to an early grave. 

I found no places of entertainment in this strange 
land : no theatre, no concert-hall, no museum, no picture- 
gallery. Let the indolent fritterer of time and money 
ponder this statement. The brightest parts of life, those 
things which in some sort make up life in a very real sense 
of the word, were for Millwall non-existent. When the 
men from the forge and the women from the loom, when 
the boys from the engine-room and the girls from the 
factory, straightened their aching backs from the work 
that brought no pleasure, from the toil that stunted body 
and soul, they had no place in which to recreate them- 



12 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

selves save the public-houses, and even these, although 
plentiful as blackberries in Brittany, had none of the 
ordinary meretricious glamour about them. Thither, 
however, they might go if they would, and drink as they 
listed, until the publican, having drained them of all 
their available cash, bundled them into the street. 

From the very first the grim bareness of the West 
Ferry Road struck me unpleasantly. It was treeless, 
flowerless. I was not to realise until afterwards the 
beggarly destitution of those two negatives. The naked- 
ness of spring, when nature should be looking her 
freshest, the nakedness of summer, when nature should 
be at her best, were presently to become physically dis- 
tressing to me. When that point was reached, I began 
to plague the Board of Works to give us the seemliness 
and comfort of trees. In vain ! I organised a big 
petition, which pathetically referred to the " very neg- 
lected and unfinished appearance " of the road, and tried 
its best to touch the hearts of the hard-hearted gentlemen 
concerned. Worse than useless ! The Board was more 
than wooden ; it was iron. And to this day, in spite of 
manifold improvements in other directions, the West 
Ferry Road is as treeless as a desert. But not as 
flowerless. Thanks to our Window Gardening Society, 
Millwall, all summer long, is gay with colour as it has 
never been before. 

In spite of obvious disadvantages, however, the place 
was not without a certain attractiveness. The sense of 
strenuous toil was manifest. All day long were heard 
the apoplectic gasp of engines, the swirring of mighty 
wheels, the thud of steam hammers, the clang and crash 
,of iron against iron, the roar of traffic. 

It could even boast, as suggested, a certain picturesque- 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 13 

ness. Thomas Pennant, the antiquary, once dined 
with certain boon companions at " The Folly," a river- 
side inn which of old was situated almost opposite to 
Greenwich Hospital. He records how they all "sat for 
some hours enjoying the delicious view of the river, and 
the moving" picture of a succession of shipping perpetually 
passing and repassing." The " delicious view " remains, 
commercialism apparently being powerless to rob us of it ; 
and the river at the Isle of Dogs is still one of the most 
beautiful sights in England. Nay, the " Mud Island " 
itself, as it has been flippantly called, has its inspiring 
moments. A summer evening will fling such colour 
over the length and breadth of it as completely to con- 
ceal its monotonous vulgarity, even as a rich shawl might 
hide the rags and dirt of a beggar. Once, indeed, I saw 
Millwall beautiful. It was at the close of an autumn day. 
The rain had been falling in tropical abundance ; the 
air was exquisitely pure, affording a medium as clear 
and flawless as crystal. A flood of mellow light deluged 
lofty chimney and lowly roof and the curving, straggling 
causeway. The bowsprits, stretched over the street like 
long, skinny arms, were shafts of shining light. For five 
minutes Millwall was an eastern paradise of purple and 
scarlet. 

It was in this strange land, then, a land of many 
anomalies and sharp contrasts, that I was appointed to 
work in the winter of 1896. On January 17th, 1897, 
I held my first service. It was a day ever to be 
remembered. In the morning everything passed off 
quietly ; the reason for which, as I subsequently dis- 
covered, was that most of the disturbing elements were 
abed. Our congregation consisted of two women and 
three children. When the time for the collection came, I 



i 4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

remembered that we had no bag, so I accepted a kindly 
offer of the next best thing ; and 1 shall never forget the 
depressing effect of the pennies contributed as they fell 
rattling into the borrowed dinner-plate. 

At the evening service, things were not so peaceful. 
My wife was stationed at the door ; and when we were 
in the middle of the General Confession, she was 
bombarded by a gang of lads, who demanded admission 
in less than polite terms. 

" 'Ere, aiit o' that ! " shouted one. 

" Shove 'er over if she won't letcher pass ! " cried 
another. 

" I say, miss," piped a third, a reedy young man who 
appeared to be the wit of the party, " where's the bloke 
with the night-gownd on ? " 

The joke was received with a tornado of merriment, 
and in the confusion Mrs. Free tried to explain that the 
room was open to all who were willing to behave them- 
selves. But nutshells and orange-peel began to be 
thrown ; and she, growing alarmed, with a deft strategic 
movement shut and bolted the door. Then began the 
sensation of the evening. Somehow or other the lads 
improvised a battering-ram, and with this formidable 
weapon began to storm our citadel. For a long time 
the attack went on, incessant and deafening, to an 
accompaniment of hoarse cries and cheers, while I 
steadily pursued my way through psalms and prayers, 
instinctively aware that if I showed the white feather I 
should have to pay for it. When, at length, the excited 
crowd broke into the building, and up the flimsy stair- 
case, our little band of worshippers sprang to their feet 
in dismay. My voice was inaudible, but I kept on. I 
wanted to conquer, if possible, by a surer weapon than 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 15 

force. The crowd of disorderly fellows rushed in upon 
us, swarming, as it seemed, one on top of the other, and 
gathered at the farther end of the room, as uncouth a 
congregation as ever "assisted" at a religious service. 
There they betook themselves to jeering and cheering, 
to jocular conversation and rude remarks, cheerfully 
cracking nuts and crushing the shells under their feet with 
loud reports. I prayed for Queen and Royal Family, for 
Clergy and People, for " all conditions of men " ; I offered 
"most humble and hearty thanks" to God for His 
goodness, particularly on behalf of " those who desire 
now to offer up their praises and thanksgivings for Thy 
mercies vouchsafed unto them in permitting them to 
begin this work " ; and without a break I finished up 
with the Grace. The hymn before the sermon was 
terrific. It was mixed up with music-hall songs, cat- 
calls and whistling. But I went through the business 
to the bitter end ; and sometimes I have thought that I 
never did anything requiring more resolution. By my 
sermon register I find that I took no text that evening, 
perhaps a pardonable omission under the circumstances ; 
but by the same indisputable authority I also find that 
on this soul-stirring occasion I spoke on the respective 
duties of the clergy and the laity ! 

This was my first experience of rowdyism in Mill- 
wall ; it was to be by no means my last. Many, many 
months were to elapse before the hostility, of which it 
was but a symptom, died a natural death ; but into 
particulars of that harassing period I do not purpose 
entering here. Suffice it to say that for a very long 
time existence was pretty nearly insufferable. Epithets 
were flung at me broadcast. Hootings, howlings, roars 
of laughter followed me as I passed up and down the 



1 6 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

West Ferry Road. The hard thing about it all was 
that I had to " smile and smile," and seem not to 
mind, although the " villain " in me was crying aloud 
for vengeance. 

Not that my experience was by any means peculiar. 
Poor Postlethwaite on one occasion poured out his 
stricken soul to me in a burst of confidence. " I fright- 
ful un'appy," he said, in his broken English ; " my life 
is but a burden to me, a 'eavy weight not to be borne. 
I must get away if I am to live." After patiently 
listening to my enthusiastic schemes for the improve- 
ment of the neighbourhood, he added, " Ah, yes, my 
God ! it is very pretty. So I thought, per'aps, when 
I come 'ere. But all that is gone. It is 'opeless. We 
deal with an evil and adulterous generation. Be on 
your guard, or the East End will kill you as it has very 
nearly killed me." 

A melancholy prophecy indeed, but not without a 
show of reason. The anxieties of those early months, 
the hopeless struggle day by day, the consciousness of 
being strangers in a strange land, the toil on behalf 
of a people who treated our advances with suspicion 
or wanton hostility, wore the nervous system thread- 
bare, until it seemed at times as if the sad prognosti- 
cation of old Postlethwaite would come true. 

An example of what I mean. For fifteen consecu- 
tive weeks I endeavoured, single-handed — for there was 
not a man in the place to help me — to form a lads' 
club. I did everything in my power to win the affection 
and confidence of those who proposed to join. I 
played cards with them ; I sang songs to them ; I made 
myself as far as possible one of them. I might have 
spared myself the pains. For fifteen consecutive weeks 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 17 

my club was broken up by Jim Skewers, the leader of 
the gang; and during all that time I endured such 
indignities, notably at the hands of Bill Bluster, a foul- 
tongued, handsome young giant of eighteen, as I had 
not theretofore imagined possible. The modus operandi 
of Jim and his followers was characterised by beautiful 
simplicity. For half-an-hour or so after the club had 
opened, all would go well. Then a suspicious fore- 
gathering at one end of the room would suggest that 
mischief was afoot. Sometimes interruption would 
come in the form of an ominous shuffling of feet, at 
others in shouting, stamping, singing or insensate raving. 
The action would move forward to its climax with the 
fatality of a Greek tragedy. Voices would wax louder 
and louder, hangings and crashings more persistent. 
I would affect blindness, deafness ; I would venture to 
remonstrate after the manner of the turtle-dove ; I 
would try to take the fellows in their humour ; I would 
appeal to them as men and gentlemen. All in vain ! 
Shriller and shriller grew the yells, more and more 
deafening the stamping and thumping, until the furni- 
ture would leap and the floor rock, and the neat, com- 
pact gas-jets spasmodically stream upwards with shrill 
screeching. When the row had reached its climax, a 
maddened neighbour would not infrequently burst in 
on us with language and threats of police. Then, at 
last, at my word of command long and patiently with- 
held, my beautiful, beautiful club would withdraw, 
screaming and kicking like maniacs, and smashing into 
everything within reach ; and I would lock the door, 
put the key in my pocket, go home, and collapse. 

I sometimes ask myself, in these days of peace and 
comparative prosperity, how it was possible for me to go 

C 



1 8 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

on in the face of such discouragement ; and the answer 
that comes to me is not so much that I had faith in 
God — that goes without saying — as that I had faith in 
man, which is a very different matter. In a word, I 
believed in the essential goodness even of the lads who 
of set purpose broke up my club every night ; and in 
that faith I tried to prove myself their friend and the 
friend of their fathers and mothers. To say that I went 
out of my way to do this is to put the matter very 
mildly. It was my daily thought, my nightly dream. 
I walked warily, spoke softly, thought thrice before 
acting. Even then I was occasionally caught napping ; 
for my zeal was apt to run away with me. Nor was the 
disciplinary check that providentially accompanies in- 
discretions backward in asserting itself. But I took 
short, sights, tried not to meet trouble half-way, and 
broke myself in to endure by little and little. 

It soon became evident that we were outgrowing the 
room in which our first services w 7 ere held ; and so an 
exodus was made to the Women's Settlement then in 
process of establishment Here the work was carried 
on under unusual difficulties. The largest room in the 
building, which happened to be on the first floor, was 
placed at our disposal ; but no sooner had we settled 
there than the district surveyor swooped down on us, 
and ordered us to the ground floor. Can the sympa- 
thetic reader realise what this meant to pioneers who 
had worn themselves out with " humping " heavy 
furniture hither and thither, and had just succeeded in 
making their temporary chapel look decent ? 

But there was still more discipline in store for us. 
For a long time one side of the building was open to 
the weather, and all the available floorspace was strewn 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 19 

with bricklayers' debris. On the stairs thick with dust 

sat the blessed infants ; all over the building, from 
ground-floor to attic, were poked the elder scholars. 
The difficulties of a Sunday School superintendent's 
work under such circumstances can be better imagined 
than described. I was the Sunday School superintend- 
ent. And my poor congregation ! What bad quarters 
of an hour I have had in anticipating the accidents that 
never came to them ! But it was no less than miraculous 
that they escaped. Old and young alike were obliged to 
perform such acrobatic feats of skill and daring, in striding 
from beam to beam of the unplanked floor, as would have 
taxed the nerves of the bravest. Once we had to go 
out bodily into the open air. At another time we were 
glad enough to creep into the shelter of a disused stable, 
where every Sunday morning I engaged in a trial of 
vocal strength with the ostler on the other side of the 
partition, he doing his best to drown my voice, and I 
doing my best to drown his. Yet, in spite of all draw- 
backs, we survived ; and from that time to this, our 
work, both spiritual and social, has gone on from day to 
day without a single break. Lazes Deo ! 

In those days I was a pluralist of the most hopeless 
character. I occupied almost every official position 
known to the Church : sacristan, server, reader, district 
visitor, Sunday School superintendent, magazine editor, 
brigade captain, organist, choirmaster, secretary of lads' 
club, missioner, priest, and preacher. Nor did my duties 
end even there. Well do I remember pausing in the 
midst of my work in the church, and wondering what 
sundry fashionable friends would think of me and my 
wife ; for she was scrubbing the floor of the sanctuary, 
and I was nailing down the carpet in the choir. 

C 2 



20 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Our choristers were three in number, insignificant in 
stature, and ragged in texture. I will honestly admit 
that they did not possess a single certain note between 
them. To get the most accomplished of them to run 
up the scale was literally impossible, whilst the least 
accomplished was incapable for the very life of him of 
passing from doh to ray or from ray to doh. Need 
I mention that I experienced considerable difficulty in 
getting these youngsters to wear surplices ? Like the 
witty young gentleman who formed one of the bom- 
barding party at our first evening service, they super- 
ciliously referred to these ancient vestments as " night- 
gownds " ; and the rollicking gaiety of our little stumpy 
band of screamers when they first came into the church 
arrayed in the orthodox white robes, was a thing to 
impress the imagination indelibly. 

The difficulty of training a sufficient number of boys 
for the services was so grave that I started a ladies' 
choir, the members of which wore a uniform. The 
innovation roused little opposition, and the improvement 
in the singing was most marked. Apropos of such 
experiments, it has always struck me as curious that 
there should be so strong a prejudice against women 
singers in the Church of England. If a woman has a 
voice, why should she not use it in church ? And if 
she is permitted to use it, why should she be denied the 
dignity of a becoming costume ? Some people seem to 
imagine that there is a peculiar sacredness about the 
small boy. I have been a small boy myself, and I " hae 
ma doots." 

Well, little by little, things began to get shipshape ; 
and I pressed into service, in one capacity or another, 
everybody associated with us. These developments 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 21 

were not without their anxieties, for my helpers used to 
resign office about once a month. If the slightest thing 
displeased them, they handed in their resignation. If 
they had a difference with a fellow-worker, they handed 
in their resignation. If I ventured to hint ever so 
mildly that there was room for improvement, they handed 
in their resignation. They were in a perennial condition 
of resignation. Gradually, however, we began to grip the 
interest of the people ; gradually a little company of 
workers grew up around us. It was inevitable, of course, 
that I should be overwhelmed with suggestions as to the 
manner in which I should discharge my manifold duties. 
One adviser wanted me to adopt this method, another 
that, while a third solemnly suggested a course equally 
removed from either. Although I generally felt it to be 
my bounden duty to go my own way, once or twice I was 
caught. When Sprightly took the choir off my hands, I 
was dazzled by the prospects he held out. " You won't 
know it in six months," he said. He was right — I 
didn't. 

On October 15, 1897, the foundation-stone of the 
mission building w r as laid by Lady Margaret Charteris ; 
and some months later, with real thanksgiving, although 
with natural regret at leaving the kindly port which had 
sheltered us in stormy days, w r e entered into possession 
of our new home. 

Our difficulties, however, were by no means lessened ; 
indeed, in some ways they had but just begun. With 
larger opportunities came larger responsibilities. Al- 
though we now had a church for spiritual work and 
rooms for social w r ork, both were as bare as your hand. 
We did not possess so much as a chair to sit on. Apart 
from my own stipend, w 7 hich was provided by the East 



52 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

London Church Fund, we had no money. Our col- 
lections averaged a shilling in the morning, and two 
shillings in the evening. Yet the need of money was 
great, and in one respect urgent. The piteous faces 
which passed us in the street, the voices of the sick and 
•dying calling as it w r ere from their beds, brought home 
to me my immediate duty The altar furniture could 
wait ; chairs for clergy and worshippers, forms for the 
children, could wait : the sick and dying could not wait. 
I felt that some effort should be made at once to help 
them. But how ? Could I look with any confidence to 
the firms where these poor sufferers had been employed, 
or where their husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, 
were still employed ? I feared not. With one or two 
exceptions the firms had shown themselves niggardly 
beyond imagination. In answer to my urgent appeals I 
received type-written regrets — and nothing else. But 
stay ! Sometimes one or other great business house 
condescended to give reasons. One of these I have pre- 
served because of its delicious disingenuousness. It 
runs thus : — " We find it impossible to help everybody, 
so have decided to help nobody." sancta simplicitas ! 
Could I beg of the West End with any hope of success ? 
Again I had my doubts. I had already found that, for 
the most part, Mayfair has no dealings with Millwall. 
Here and there, indeed, help is given to a poor East 
End church by a rich West End one ; but it is help of 
the kind that the daintily shod damsel flings to the 
crossing-sweeper. 

With a woman's ready wit, my wife hit on the simple 
expedient of inviting ladies from far and near to form 
themselves into a guild, the object of which should be 
the raising of money for the sick, the obligation of which 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 23 

should be prayer and the payment of a penny a week. 
The scheme answered admirably : and for a long time 
the poor and suffering were comforted by the gifts of 
those who were strangers to each other and, for the most 
part, to us also. 

So the money began to flow in, and gradually the 
uncertain, trickling streamlet grew into a steady, bulky 
stream. My work has never been more than tem- 
porarily hampered for lack of funds. It is true that 
entire dependence on voluntary subscriptions suggests a 
chronic state of bankruptcy. Yet, strange to say, the 
bankruptcy never comes, the inevitable is somehow 
always staved off. 

What a big, generous heart the Englishman has, 
after all ! The affectionate letters I have received from 
perfect strangers, and from many parts of the world, 
would be a revelation to those who are fond of lament- 
ing the degeneracy of human nature. I cannot refrain 
from quoting a single message of goodwill from a 
working-man : " Smoking no cigarettes for the past 
three weeks, I am able to send you sixpence in stamps. 
Perhaps some gentleman smoking cigars will send a 
little more. God bless you." That was a benediction 
worth having, and not less so because it was backed up 
by real self-sacrifice. 

Let us give ourselves no airs in the matter. The 
more thorough we are in our work for humanity, the 
more we shall require money. Money is the motive 
power that keeps the machine going, without which 
the machine must inevitably stop. The East End 
parson is like the engineer of a ship with hundreds of 
passengers aboard and coal running short. At any cost 
he must keep up steam. An hour's slackness, and the 



24 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

craft which has ridden so many seas in safety may 
founder in sight of land. What matter if he occa- 
sionally condescends to undignified methods ! Surely 
here, if anywhere, the end justifies the means ; and if 
our Cathedral brethren, from the security of their 
Cathedral sinecures, are apt at times to tilt superior 
noses at us, let them of their charity reflect that the 
Church of England will find or lose herself, as the Church 
of the nation, in the success or failure of the rough-and- 
tumble methods of the slum parson. 

It is well-nigh impossible for the rich West End 
clergyman to understand the difficulties of his brother 
in the East. A striking example of this occurs to me. 
I once received a circular, in which were set forth the 
views of two West End rectors, Dr. Thunderbolt and 
Mr. Phemtra, on the best methods of raising money for 
a certain deservedly popular fund. I confess to sur- 
prise, and even amazement, at the flourish with which 
these gentlemen announced their method of work. " I 
simply organise," said Dr. Thunderbolt. " I do the 
same," said Mr. Phemtra. Of course, I was all agog to 
learn the nature of the organisation which produced 
results in four figures, and found that Dr. Thunderbolt's 
plan consisted in distributing, wholesale, a circular letter, 
and, retail, a brief private appeal. Mr. Phemtra used 
the printed letter published by the fund. What could 
be simpler? What more effective? Work, and you 
shall receive ! But — it is such a pity there are always 
" buts " in these cases ! — one could not help wondering 
how much the wealth of the parishes concerned had to 
do with the extraordinary success of these very primi- 
tive methods. What about poor parishes? Will the 
clergy of the West never understand the awful anxieties 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 25 

of the clergy of the East ? " We felt that Dr. Thunder- 
bolt's and Mr. Phemtra's hints were so excellent, that 
they ought to be known far and wide," benevolently 
remarked a distinguished churchman. Alas and alack ! 
What, after all, had these good gentlemen told the rank 
and file of the clergy ? Let them hear how we at 
St. Cuthbcrt's collect for this fund. Posters occupy 
prominent positions. Special sermons are preached, 
morning, afternoon, and evening. My wife, who is an 
unusually able collector, devotes the whole day to 
visiting every inhabitant of every house in the district, 
not even allowing the public-house habitues to escape, 
or the loungers at the corners. Meals are snatched as 
they may be ; the day is one mighty rush from morn to 
night. Although one-tenth of the whole collection is 
given by myself, the net result of our united efforts 
averages little more than £4. 

The slum parson cannot expect impossibilities from 
his congregation in the way of money ; but he gets 
something that his West End brother would dearly like 
to get if he could. In spite of the incessant grind of 
their daily labour, East-enders are most willing to give 
of the w r ork of their hands. It was this cheerful readi- 
ness that made possible our Church Cleaning League at 
St. Cuthbert's. Week by week this little band of 
scrubbers, sweepers, and polishers are found at their 
posts, armed with their weapons of war ; and once a 
year a grand battue is organised, when every nook and 
cranny of the church is raked from roof to floor. For 
years past not a single penny has been paid for church 
cleaning. 

How did this wonderful League come into existence ? 
Let the newspaper, that true friend of the East End 



26 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

parson, answer in its own fashion. " Living in the Isle 
of Dogs, on an unscavenged thoroughfare, which he 
himself calls a disgrace to the metropolis, amid hovels 
and factories, evil smells and uncouth sounds, with an 
unendowed church where the weekly offertory is ^i and 
the weekly expenses £io y the Rev. Richard Free feels 
what it is to be well-nigh forgotten, while one's parochial 
work has to live from hand to mouth. His flock help 
him by making contributions in kind, in place of the 
money they cannot supply. A week or two ago the 
church wanted badly the spring-clean that had been 
lacking for three or four years. There was no means of 
paying for it. Mr. and Mrs. Free appealed to the con- 
gregation. Pails and soap and brushes were obtained 
from somewhere ; ladders were borrowed ; a colour 
manufacturer hard by donated sufficient paint and 
varnish ; and in two evenings the church was clean 
from roof to floor. It was a volunteer band of men, 
women, and children who did it, and the parson and his 
wife worked as hard as any." — Morning Leader \ 
April ist, 1 90 1. 

The superior noses are tilted at a terribly acute 
angle, I fear ; for " the parson and his wife worked as 
hard as any " ! So undignified ! And yet — and yet, 
what could be more in keeping with -the best traditions 
of our religion ? The monks of old knew well enough 
that work is prayer. But we, degenerates that we are, 
take so little interest in our spiritual homes, the treasure- 
houses of our best impulses and holiest thoughts, as 
to hand over their cleansing to hirelings. Christran 
churches should be kept clean by Christian people, for 
love and not for money ; and the East End parson w T ho 
works with his hands has a message for his genera- 



A CITY OF DESOLATION 27 

tion, whether they will hear or whether they will 
forbear. 

So the work began, and the stress and strain of it. It 
was pioneering pure and simple. As the Bishop had 
warned me, there was no house to live in. Indeed, so 
acute was the house-famine that I could not even hire a 
room for use during the day. We were obliged to live 
on the south side of the Thames, and frequently on 
Sundays crossed and recrossed the river by the ferry- 
boat six or even eight times, which, as it was mid- 
winter, was trying both to temper and to constitution. 
But strength was given where strength was needed ; 
and there came a day when we perceived, to our un- 
speakable joy, that there was a stirring among the dry 
bones. Friendly interest in our doings began to be 
manifested, and I found myself greeted in most cordial 
fashion by a dozen people in as many yards ; while as 
for the children, those little saviours of the East End, 
they poured out, as indeed had been their wont from the 
beginning, the wealth of their inexhaustible affection. 
But so important a subject as the East End child must 
have a chapter all to itself. 



CHAPTER II 

THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 

My wife has just called me to see a nearly nude little 
baby boy, whose greatest delight is to crawl from his 
home round the corner to the open door of our house, 
and take possession of the door-mat. There he squats, 
chuckling with glee at our playful advances, and scream- 
ing remonstrance at his proposed removal. He is a lovely 
child, fashioned as God intended he should be, and 
cheerful with the cheerfulness of perfect health. Arms 
and legs are grubby with unimaginable dirt, acquired 
by crawling along the pavement ; but they are firm and 
substantial limbs which may stand him in good stead 
one of these days. As I look at him, he seems to me 
typical of the East End child so full of promise ; but I 
could weep to think how all that fair promise may be 
blasted long before manhood is reached, by those bitter 
winds of adversity — painful labour, deadly toil, the in- 
tolerable pain of life. 

Entirely delightful are the children of the East, 
whether immaculately stiff and frizzled in their Sunday 
best, or tattered and half-naked in their Saturday worst. 
What the East End would be without the children it 
is impossible even to imagine. Their eagerness and 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 29 

inquisitiveness, their pathetic dependence, their innocence 
and ignorance, their generosity, their lavish affection : 
all these things are a perpetual source of refreshing to 
the dispirited worker, and he cannot picture himself 
existing without them. And their smiles ! Why, their 
smiles are the most bracing experience imaginable. 
One could not do without their smiles. Many a time 
have I come home, after a disappointing day of drudgery, 
with this testimony on my lips and in my heart : " But 
for the children I should give up in despair." Not the 
moodiest temper could resist their enthusiasm. How I 
recall them in summer, crowding round the open 
window, and earnestly discussing what we were having 
for dinner. How I recall them in winter, flattening 
their noses against the frosty panes, and lamenting loud- 
voiced their inability to see more than the reflection of 
the dancing fire-flames. God bless the children of the 
East for the most fascinating morsels of humanity that 
were ever created ! 

I think it was first borne in upon me that the East 
End child is different from any other in the world when, 
as a Sunday School, we were fighting for dear life in 
our temporary home at the Settlement. Great gaps, 
through which the rain and the wind rioted at pleasure, 
yawned in the walls. The dust gathered in spacious 
grey drifts wherever it could hold together. Thick 
layers of it were on every ledge ; every crevice was 
crammed with it ; the floor was thickly carpeted with 
it. When the wind blew fierce and strong, which it 
generally did during school time, the dust rose in 
choking clouds which would not have disgraced the 
efforts of an Arabian whirlwind. But the children did 
not mind. They sat on the floor : they liked the floor. 



30 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

They sat on the dust-heaps : they found the dust-heaps 
soft and warm. They sat five abreast on the twenty- 
four steps of the broad staircase, and screamed with 
inarticulate joy. Complaints from indignant mothers 
came thick and fast respecting the after-school condition 
of Sunday frocks and knickerbockers ; but the children 
never complained. No word of dissatisfaction ever 
parted their lips. They never lost heart. In spite of 
exposure and discomfort, with many a severe cold to 
follow, in spite of begriming dirt and choking dust, that 
Sunday School of ours throve apace. 

Nothing damps the spirits of the East End child ; 
nothing quenches his ardour. Take him on an outing, 
and while the day is still in its infancy, you will know 
him through and through. He will arrive too soon ; he 
will arrive in an impossible costume ; he will even arrive 
breathless and hatless. On a very rainy morning, little 
Sloane appeared at the starting-place for one of our 
excursions three hours before the advertised time of 
departure, four hours before the actual time, and in the 
thinnest imaginable attire. In ten minutes he was wet 
to the skin, but he would not budge. No tempting 
offers of hot coffee, no warnings of imminent consump- 
tion, could move that boy. He stuck to his post, and he 
was rewarded by a glorious day. Wet, but glorious ! 
For your true East End child boggles not at trifles. 
Does the heat scorch him ? He holds his face up to the 
sun "to get brown." Does the cold freeze him? 
Nothing could be better, because he won't " sweat " 
when the races come on. Does the rain fall in a 
deluge? He gleefully catches the drops in his cap. Is 
there a thunderstorm ? He seriously settles down for 
fifteen seconds to imitate the fizzle and roar of it. 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 31 

Deeply religious, too, is the East End child. Religion 
fascinates him. He is not always accurate in his 
description of what is sometimes sarcastically termed 
"ecclesiastical millinery"; but when it is remembered 
that many of his seniors still confound a hood with a 
stole, his ignorance in that direction is not altogether 
surprising. Small boy Trubb, after being taken to one 
of our services, went home with a weird story about 
myself. " The genkleman," he assured his mother, " had 
a frock and a nightgown on ; an' he wore a stockin' 
round his neck." Little errors of that kind the East 
End child certainly does make ; but his religion is very 
real to him all the same. Indeed, it is his insatiable 
curiosity about everything connected with spiritual 
matters that lands him in such difficulties. When the 
name of our house was first painted over the door, it 
excited among our neighbours the usual amount of 
good-natured chaff. But the children were in dead 
earnest about it. They could not imagine what it 
meant. " Cufbert's Lodge, I make it," cried one, after 
having spelt out the words letter by letter, back and 
forth, a dozen times or more. " Not it ! " retorted his 
companion. " Cufbert's ? " — with exceeding scorn. " It's 
Cafolic Lodge, that's what it is." 

There is your East End child all over. Anything, 
howsoever remotely associated with religion, interests 
him, is meat and drink to him ; he simply cannot leave 
it alone. And his simple faith, couched as it invariably 
is in quaint language, is strangely penetrating and 
convincing. " Please, dear God, make Dolly alive 
again," was Ruby Grey's prayer for her dead sister ; 
and St. Paul himself could not have bettered it. 

Yet, at the commencement of my work, I found the 



32 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

children absolutely ignorant of the prayer-book and of 

the ordinary methods of the simplest Church service. 

They did not know when to sit, when to stand, when to 

kneel. Versicles and responses, canticles and hymns, 

creeds and collects were all so much Greek to them. 

These things they had to be taught with untiring 

perseverance. But our labour of love had its reward 

within a couple of years or so ; for by that time the 

youngest child in our Sunday School knew much of the 

Morning and Evening Prayer by heart, and many of 

the elder children could even take an intelligent part in 

the Holy Communion. Which goes to prove that the 

East End child is amazingly teachable. You may not 

be able to make a " lady " or " gentleman " of him, using 

those terms in the accepted and narrow sense, as the 

late Sir Walter Besant tried to show ; but if you catch 

him young enough, you may make a God-fearing citizen 

of him, which is an all-round better thing. In one way, 

indeed, it is lamentable that religion should be considered 

merely a matter for the child ; but let us be thankful 

for so much. This tradition, although no more than the 

remnant of a dead faith, may not impossibly be the 

means of raising the third and fourth generation of 

East Enders to a moral and spiritual excellence at 

present undreamed of. 

And, in this connection, we must not forget the influ- 
ence of the missionary child, a very important factor, as 
every "worker" will tell you, in the religious life of the 
East End. Take Nina, for example. 

"And who is Nina?" interpolates the interested 
reader. 

Is it possible that I have not yet introduced this 
diminutive damsel ? Then allow me to do so at once. 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 33 

Nina, then, was one of the keenest of my missionaries. 
Very small, even for her age, which was seven, dark of 
eye, tawny of skin, black as to her tangled hair, down 
as to her stockings, down as to her heels, a veritable 
gipsy of a child. She never wore a hat ; and although 
her boots were of that particular species known as 
" laced," they were very far from being so, the laces in- 
variably draggling behind her like comets' tails. Yet 
was Nina earnest and enthusiastic beyond imagination 
in one so young. Never shall I forget the shining of 
her eyes as she met me at the school-door one sad after- 
noon in mid-November. She held by the hand a lump 
of goggle-eyed stupidity, and screamed into the semi- 
darkness when I was yet afar off : 

" 'Ere y are, Mr. Free ! This " — she jerked the little 
fat mass completely off its feet — "this is the fourth Fve 
brought to Sunday School." 

Nor was she less keen in trying to compel her parents 
into the fold. Numberless were the efforts she made to 
bring her father to church ; and although she failed, she 
was doggedly determined that he should do something 
for religion. So her vigorous little mind set to work. 
Quite accidentally I lighted on the results of her cogi- 
tations. " So your father was once a server ? " I was 
saying. " What a pity that he should have broken away 
so completely from the old life ! " 

The child's eyes dropped ; a faint flush of shame over- 
spread her sw r art little face. " He don't get boozed as 
often as he used to," she said in timid excuse. 

" But he never comes to church, Nina." 

" No, an' he never won't " — with finality ; " but — but 
Fve got him — Fve got 'im to — " she caught her breath 
in her eagerness ; her face was aglow with excitement. 

D 



34 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" Well ? " 

" I've got — got 'im to — to gimme a penny for the 
'eat hen ! " 

You never find a little East-ender disloyal to father 
or mother, although he may be instinctively aware that 
he is espousing an unworthy cause. On the contrary, 
he will stoutly, even fiercely, defend his parents. 

" Muvver 'd come to church, on'y 'er clo'es is all 
tore," explained a little boy who had done his unsuccess- 
ful best to drag his unwilling parent to a Sunday evening 
service. 

" And your father ? " I inquired. 

" Farver ? Well, farver — farver 'e 'ad to go an' buy 
pidgins las' Sunday." 

" My father is a good man, altho' 'e don't go to no 
church," is a remark which I have heard a hundred 
times over ; and something in my face has occasionally 
provoked a passionate declaration, such as, " Well, 'e 
don't get drunk as often as Mister Smiff, anyway." 

As for the East End child's affection for the clergy, it 
is unbounded. Let the man who has no love for children 
hesitate before going to work in the East End. Other- 
wise he will have a bad time of it. There the children 
charge you in the street ; and you must be prepared 
valiantly to receive the shock if you would retain your 
balance and your dignity. There they will slip their 
small hands into yours, chat, laugh, dance by your side, 
then abruptly, with a succession of knowing little nods, 
scamper off home as fast as their legs can carry them. 
The shy, sweet glances the timid ones will give you on 
your return from your yearly holiday, and the ringing 
cheers the bolder spirits will venture upon on a similar 
occasion, are more real and more delightful welcome- 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 35 

homes than most people can boast. But they would be 
torture to the man or woman who has no love for 
children. At times, indeed, even to those of us who are 
most devoted, the East End child's overflowing affection 
is apt to prove embarrassing. One Sunday, after our 
return from our holiday, my wife was kneeling in prayer 
at the close of the morning service, when she was startled 
by scores of clinging little fingers about her neck, and 
warm, warm kisses on her cheeks. The interpretation of 
these phenomena was not far to seek, however. Our 
little folk were so eager to greet her that they could not 
wait even until she had risen from her knees. That is 
the kind of thing that makes life worth living in the 
East End. 

Then consider the child's independence. Foolish 
people seem to imagine that " poor " children are cring- 
ing little parasites, whose offensiveness is only to be 
mitigated by a liberal supply of halfpence. So far as 
the East End is concerned, nothing could be farther 
from the truth. I give two out of scores of possible 
illustrations. 

Sally is the daughter of a labourer with a large family. 
On one occasion she was asked to take home in a 
perambulator a little invalid girl who had just come out 
of hospital. She agreed with alacrity, and went off 
with her charge. When she returned from a long tramp 
in the broiling sun, she was offered fourpence for her 
trouble. To our consternation she bluntly refused it. 
Neither threats nor entreaties would move her. And 
only when it was pointed out to her that the money was 
not given as a reward, but merely in order to cover the 
cost of shoe-leather, did she consent to accept it — " for 
mother." 



36 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Very early on St. George's Day, 1901, Elsie and 
Harry were sent to Covent Garden to buy roses. Neither 
knew anything of London ; but, by carefully following 
instructions, they at length sighted the market. Alas ! 
it was within a minute or two of closing time. The 
realisation of how much they had to do, and how little 
time they had to do it in, naturally turned their heads. 
They got excited and loquacious. A passing stranger — 
a " toff," as I ascertained later — volunteered his assist- 
ance, laid out their money to the best advantage, and 
finally piloted them to Charing Cross and saw them into 
the train. On the way to the station, Harry, who was 
much impressed by the stranger's kindness, began to 
deliberate within himself. Dropping a little to the rear, 
he signalled to Elsie, and in a dramatic whisper proposed 
what seemed to him a suitable acknowledgment. Elsie 
readily concurred, and forthwith contributed her share. 
Then these two delicious little originals, hurrying after 
their benefactor, gravely thanked him for the trouble he 
had taken, and gave him — twopence ! 

The roses thus acquired were publicly sold later in 
the day at varying prices, the idea being to foster the 
patriotic spirit. And thereby hangs another tale. A 
little girl, Hettie Deacon by name, sold a rose to a 
passer-by, who, apparently touched by the child's obvious 
poverty, gave her a penny for herself. Hettie brought 
my wife the price of the rose, and was loud in her 
praises of the stranger's generosity. 

" What could have happened ? " thought Mrs. Free, as 
she proceeded with deft fingers to fashion a buttonhole. 

" An' he give me a penny," Hettie announced. 

" Oh ! so that's it," smilingly thought my wife. 

" An' 'ere it is ! " cried Hettie, holding out the coin. 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 37 

" No, no, child, I mustn't take it. The penny is yours 
to do what you like with." 

Hettie shook her head in resolute refusal ; and the 
upshot of it was that she solemnly deposited the coin 
in the poor-box. 

A beautiful example of the East End child's un- 
selfishness was furnished by an incident that occurred in 
connection with our Happy Hour for Children. At this 
weekly gathering we elect a " champion," who receives 
a money prize, is adorned with a gorgeous rosette, and 
sits in state on a throne. Kitty Slingsby was one of the 
Happy Hour children ; and one winter she got to know, 
as children will, that her mother was terribly hard up. 
" Never mind, dear ! " said she ; " I'll be champion 
to-night — you see ! That'll be three loaves, anyhow." 
Strong in this determination, she came to the meeting, 
entered for the dancing competition, and danced with 
such ability and vigour that the children declared her 
champion as with one voice. Little did we think, as 
we watched the small shabby figure gyrating on the 
platform, how full was the child's heart of hope and fear. 
But she showed no sign of her anxiety. Not until the 
eight pennies were firmly grasped in her hand did her 
face relax its almost grim intensity, and then she gave a 
little chirrup of delight like a vastly contented bird. 

At these Happy Hour gatherings we have the greatest 
difficulty in persuading the children that they must vote 
for merit and nothing else. In their large-hearted 
charity, they will persist in allowing other considerations 
to weigh with them. They will vote a boy champion 
because he has the toothache, or a girl because she has 
been left in the fourth standard at the day school 
while her companions have been promoted to the fifth. 



38 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

An instance of this tendency, as amusing as it is pathetic, 
occurs to me. Connie's father was out of work, and 
there was great distress at home, the little ones crying 
for food, and the parents half-crazy with worry and 
hunger. Now the Happy Hour children knew of this, 
although I did not ; and they manifested the intensest 
interest, buzzing like so many flies, when Hilda and 
Connie stepped upon the platform to decide the singing 
competition. There was not the slightest doubt of the 
superiority of Hilda's voice. She sang in a clear, correct 
soprano. Connie, on the other hand, whose voice would 
have been inferior at any time, was further hindered by 
a severe cold. She broke down twice, and at the best 
was very croaky and throaty. Yet, when I asked the 
children to vote, they all with one accord shouted 
" Connie." I tried to explain to them that they were 
not to elect the girl they liked best, but the girl who 
sang best. 

" We will put it to the vote again, as I think you did 
not understand," I said. " Now then ! For Hilda?" 

Not a single hand went up. 

" For Connie ? " 

A shoal of hands. 

I remonstrated — I expostulated — indeed, I began to 
lose my temper. I said, " What ? Do you mean to tell 
me that Connie sang better than Hilda? " 

Shrieks of " Yes." 

" But, my dear children, Connie broke down twice." 

It was of no use. They shouted " Connie " until 
they were hoarse ; they kept their hands up until they 
were ready to cry aloud with pain ; they stamped and 
screamed. It was " Connie," and only " Connie." They 
would not have Hilda at any price — her father was 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 39 

earning thirty-eight shillings a week ! In the end I had 
to give in ; and such a roar of delight as I have seldom 
heard broke from those charming little pagans when 
I handed the crack-voiced Connie the prize for singing. 

" Lov-elly ! " exclaimed a little girl in the front row, 
who wore the enraptured look of a saint. " Now they'll 
have something to eat." 

The " daily bread " means the " daily bread " to the 
East End child. It is no euphemistic expression for 
chicken and champagne. I know two little Millwall 
laddies who insist on saying at their morning prayers, 
" Give us this day our daily three loaves on the table " 
that being the number required to satisfy the family 
appetite. 

Is it not sad to think that these bright, self-denying 
little creatures have such a miserable time of it? Driven 
from their homes by the sheer discomfort and wretched- 
ness of them, they have nowhere to play but the streets, 
muddy in winter and dusty in summer. I have been 
both pained and amused, nor could I say which feeling 
predominated, to observe with what zest our boys and 
girls would paddle in a stinking gutter for the sheer joy 
of feeling the water about their limbs. What Millwall 
wants is a public garden. The other evening a deputa- 
tion of boys and girls waylaid me in the West Ferry 
Road, and, with many apologetic gasps and giggles, 
at length succeeded in urging one of their number — as 
dainty a morsel of femininity as ever went barefoot — to 
interpret their wishes. 

" Mithter Free," said she, with the slightest but most 
adorable lisp, " ith it true that you are goin' to make a 
country for uth 'ere ? " 

" No, little girl," was my answer, " it is not true ; 



4 o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

for, although it has been my dream for years to make 
you a ' country ' in the very midst of this place, I am as 
far from success as ever." 

May the heart of some lover of children be stirred to 

give the Millwall boys and girls a space of Mother 

Earth for ever, where they may romp and play to their 

hearts' content, and build up robust constitutions for the 

uture. 

Pretty, witty, quaint, and clever, supremely unself- 
ish, supremely enthusiastic and unquenchably good- 
humoured is the East End child. Nothing damps his 
spirits, nothing quenches his ardour, except, indeed, 
illness. And the saddest sight in the world is the little 
East End child on a bed of sickness. There is some- 
thing unnatural about that. One finds oneself saying, 
" How dare disease touch anything so beautiful and 
glad ! " 

At fourteen the East End boy leaves school, and the 
workman's sordid life begins for him. Ah, the pity of it ! 
Could he but remain a boy, and not become a little prig 
of a man, what a blessing it would be ! For it is he who 
understands, it is he who loves, it is he who prays and 
worships — until he goes to work. His parents may 
resolutely set their faces against Christianity in any 
form — as, indeed, they almost invariably do ; for, in the 
East End, to be ever so remotely suspected of " religion " 
is so unfashionable that only persons of exceptional 
character dare run the social risk ; but the boy will stick 
to his church through thick and thin, with magnificent 
devotion — until he goes to work. Poor little chap! 
The moment he leaves school he occupies in the eyes of 
his world the dignity and authority of a bread-winner. 
The privileges accorded him by universal consent in that 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 41 

capacity are not of the highest He may become a 
devotee of the music-hall ; but he may not attend a 
place of worship. He is expected to assume equality 
with everybody ; he is not expected to show respect for 
age, rank, or wisdom. He is allowed to smoke, drink, 
swear, gamble ; but he is not allowed to pray. If he 
persists in worshipping and praying, he must be pre- 
pared to tread in the footsteps of the martyrs. Thence- 
forth he will be a marked boy, a marked man ; the 
brand of Christ will be upon him ; and in some cases his 
punishment will prove greater than he can bear. 

Young Fulleylove w T as literally ill for days because his 
father would not allow him to be baptised. In the end 
he conquered, but that was because he was an excep- 
tional lad. The commonplace lad goes the way of com- 
monplace flesh. Although his inclinations may be 
towards the better life, the pressure of public opinion is 
too strong for him. As he crosses the threshold of the 
Elementary School for the last time, and swaggers into 
the great world, he " chucks " religion for good and all. 
Thereafter his father fights shy of him, his mother 
cringes to him, and he is equally contemptuous of both. 
He smokes his " fags" and gulps down his four-half, with 
a fine scorn of the established order of things. 

It is rare to find a parent who realises any personal 
responsibility in the matter. Mrs. Steever was one day 
complaining to me of her only son. It w r as the usual 
story. In his early days a chorister, a Sunday scholar, 
a boy of prayer, no sooner did he go to work — 1 listened 
patiently to the end of the long lamentation. Then I 
said, " Did you ever set your boy a good example ? " 
The question startled the woman into sudden conscious- 
ness of her shortcomings, and she was obliged to confess 



42 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

that neither she nor her husband had made any profes- 
sion of religion for twenty years. 

There was a time when I used to imagine the boy of 
fourteen to be simple, modest, and respectful. I was 
awakened to the true facts of the case on Sunday, May 
30th, 1897. On that day I was returning from a ter- 
rible hour in the Sunday School, when I caught sight of 
a little fellow, the youngest son of Trammin the steve- 
dore, with hands in pockets and back propped against a 
wall, smoking with excessive ostentation. My nerves 
were in a terrible jangle ; my tact forsook me. 

" Dear boy, do take that thing out of your mouth," I 
said. 

" Not me ! I paid for it wiv my own money, money 
wot I worked for myself. I can do as I like wiv my 
own, can't I ? " A not uncommon method of argument, 
by-the-way, in more fashionable neighbourhoods than 
the East End. 

I saw I was wrong, and forcibly repressed the 
remnant of my irritation. I spoke calmly and cheer- 
fully. I pointed out the necessity of self-control, and 
tried to demonstrate how youthful indulgence in little 
things would probably result in grown-up indulgence in 
great things. In an evil moment I wound up my little 
sermon — for such, alas ! it was, in spite of all my efforts 
to the contrary — by giving the lad a hearty invitation 
to come to church. I had better have held my tongue. 
The word stung him to the quick. He forced through 
his nostrils a thin grey cloud, watched it through 
half-closed eyelids as it melted in the clear spring air, 
and then, with immense deliberation, sneered. It was a 
cruel sneer for one so young, painful to see at the time, 
painful to remember afterwards. I began to suspect 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 43 

that I had entered upon a hopeless enterprise, but I was 
still game. Placing my hand on the boy's shoulder, in 
the way we learn to do in the East End, I said, " Don't 
you ever say your prayers, Trammin ? " 

"No, I've give it up." 

" Now listen to me. I say my prayers ; and I'm a 
man." 

" Yus, but that's your work." 

" Gordon," I went on hurriedly — desperately, " Chinese 
Gordon, the great soldier, used to say his prayers — 
What ! Never heard of Gordon ? Well, Mr. Gladstone 
— nor of him either ? At any rate you have heard of 
Queen Victoria ? " 

" O, lor' ! yus," — with a snigger. 

" Well, she's the greatest lady in the land, and one of 
the most powerful rulers in the world ; and yet — 
now mark ! — yet she believes in God, and she says her 
prayers." 

" I dessay," agreed the boy, puffing away his hardest ; 
" she's a woman." 

Quite impossible, for the most part, is the East End 
lad. It is not his fault ; it is his misfortune. Fourteen 
years ago he started the race of life, heavily handi- 
capped. In all probability his mother was drinking 
heavily from the hour she conceived him to the hour 
she bore him. If he did not succumb in infancy to con- 
sumption of the bowels, that black plague of the East 
End, it was not her fault. Yet the neglect of the 
mother, in all probability, was coddling itself compared 
with that of the father. We shall have to grovel far 
down among the lower orders of creation to find any- 
thing quite so irresponsible as the East End father 
respecting his offspring. Only when his little son or 



44 SEVEN YEARS* HARD 

daughter is dead does he begin to bestir himself, and he 
makes a fine fuss over its funeral. All at once the poor, 
wee baby-thing assumes a dignity hitherto utterly 
unknown to it ; for its death brings to its thirsty sire a 
ten-pound note from the insurance office. 

That there are parents in the East End who take the 
deepest possible interest in their children, lavishing upon 
them all the care and loving-kindness that one would 
expect of highly bred people, goes without saying ; but 
in the majority of cases it is not so. The irresponsibility 
of East End fathers and mothers, their shameful example, 
their positive discouragement of noble tendencies, go far 
to explain the precocious depravity of the East End boy 
and girl. On hot summer nights East End children are 
playing in the streets until twelve and one o'clock. 
Needless to say, they find much to interest them. Here 
a man is knocking down a woman with a baby in her 
arms ; not once, but twice, and thrice, while one listens 
for the sickening crash, and expects every moment to see 
the child's brains bespattering the pavement. There an 
argument between a couple of women waxes shriller and 
shriller until the hysterical condition is reached which 
can find no outlet but in the tearing of hair and the 
blacking of eyes. In my early days, as many as three 
or four fights would occur on a single night within fifty 
yards of my house. Blood would flow freely, features 
become disfigured with awful defilement, unutterably 
vile language would be flung hither and thither with 
shameless recklessness ; and the children would press as 
close as they dared, with parted lips and staring eyes, 
silent, horrified, and fascinated. 

Neglect from the day of their birth until they are able 
to shift for themselves is the sad fate of our little East- 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 45 

enders. They may be seen fluttering about the public- 
houses like moths, attracted by the light and warmth. 
They may be seen digging and delving in the gutter, 
making the inevitable mud-pies over foul drains and 
unconsciously harbouring the germs of disgusting diseases. 
Into their baby ears, as they play, drift unspeakable 
words suggestive of unthinkable thoughts. Do we dare 
to wonder why these little ones grow up to weak and 
sickly manhood and womanhood ? become undisciplined, 
irresolute, double-minded, cursed with irresistible im- 
pulses to evil ? The boy's father is a foul-mouthed 
drunkard : what chance for the boy ? The girl's mother 
is a slut, a strumpet : what chance for the girl ? Can a 
boy listen to vile words and keep his innocence of heart ? 
Can a girl see polluting sights and maintain her purity of 
body ? Sometimes, indeed, the bad parent deliberately 
incites to sin, and for the sake of a few shillings looks 
on unmoved at her fifteen-year-old daughter prostituting 
her slender body to the lust of a man-beast thrice her 
age. 

Before such supreme cruelty, lesser incitements to 
evil sink into insignificance, but must not be passed 
over. Mrs. Gringle, for instance, was one of those who 
held her head high among her neighbours ; yet she was 
not ashamed, for the sake of strong drink, to pawn and 
repawn, week after week, her daughters' clothes to their 
very boots. Poor, wee lassies ! How often have they 
been obliged to lie low the whole of Sunday, when 
their hearts were yearning for church and school ! 

I have known mothers, mostly negligently, sometimes 
deliberately, place the Sunday dinner at so late an hour 
as to make it impossible for their children, bolt it fast 
as they would, to get to Sunday School in time. The 



46 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

children, bless them ! have generally solved the difficulty 
by foregoing their dinners altogether. " What ! not 
had your dinner ? M I would say, catching at some 
chance word. 

" Oh, that's nothing," would be the reassuring answer. 
" I shall get tea right enough." 

I have known mothers jeer at their daughters when 
they knelt to say their prayers ; and some of my boys 
have had to put up with shameful treatment from elder 
sisters and brothers, as well as from parents, because 
they insisted on going to Communion. Is it astonishing 
that the promise of the child's life is not fulfilled ? Can 
we wonder that early environment, lack of training, 
and pernicious example are too strong even for the most 
ardent reformers, and that youthful ruffianism flourishes 
amain ? 

And I am naturally led here to say a word about 
the Hooligan. Seven years ago Hooliganism abounded 
in Millwall. The Millwall Hooligans did not kick police- 
men to death or murder old ladies ; they were not pro- 
fessional thieves or cut-throats. For the most part they 
were loafers ; more rarely, hard-working fellows who, 
having finished their daily toil and had their teas, were 
by way of looking at life cheerfully. True to the gre- 
garious instincts of their kind, these young hopefuls 
went about in droves. They flung lewd or insolent 
remarks at passers-by. With a great show of innocence 
they blocked the passage of unwary pedestrians, or 
shoved them off the footway. They committed petty 
larceny when they got the chance, gambled secretly 
during the day, and openly made night hideous with 
their yowlings. Generally they were successful in their 
defiance of the authorities, and occasionally they turn- 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 47 

bled a policeman. There were, at limes, as many as 
three or four gangs of them within a hundred yards of 
my house, each with its own particular trysting-placc. 
One gang would select the corner of Ingleheim Place, 
another the pavement a dozen yards south of the Great 
Eastern public-house, a third would station itself outside 
one or other of the most popular fish-shops. Woe to the 
gang that ventured to trespass upon another's territory ! 
Then was there excitement enough in the neighbourhood 
to keep one awake the livelong night. 

My very first efforts were directed to the task of 
breaking up these gangs, not by force, but by the simple 
expedient of superior attraction. After waiting for 
three months for a dwelling-house, I had at length 
secured one. It was a terrible old shanty, lacking every 
convenience, and alive with vermin ; but it was a palace 
to us after all the dreary waiting, and so it soon became 
to the boys. Two of the five available rooms we left 
unfurnished, and opened them as reading-rooms. The 
movement caught on. There was little reading, and 
much jocularity ; but there were plenty of pictures with 
which to charm the eye and excite the imagination. Of 
course we had " ructions," but none of them of a very 
serious nature, and some of the very lads who had so 
unmercifully stormed us during our first service were as 
quiet as the youngest of lambkins. 

On behalf of those for whom the reading-room had 
no attractions, I established sing-songs. These were 
held in our " drawing-room." We were a motley crew 
of all ages and sizes. Slim little lads of ten sat, 
generally on the floor, cheek by jowl with tall strapping 
fellows of sixteen. We sang as the spirit of song 
moved us. The " men " who had left school puffed at 



48 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

their " fags " ; the boys who were still at school sniffed 
enviously ; the girls smiled their sweetest smiles, and 
looked (but were not) as meek as milk ; all sang with 
inconceivable lustiness. 

If, as the late Sir Walter Besant once said, " The East 
End would have been lost but for the Church of 
England," it is because the Church of England was the 
first to grasp the idea that we must stoop to conquer, 
frankly recognising that in his essence the Hooligan is 
not unnatural, that he is explicable only if regarded 
as an abnormal manifestation of a perfectly normal 
tendency. For, although Hooliganism may degenerate 
into vice, it is more likely, by the very violence of 
it, to evolve into virtue. It is so natural, indeed, as to 
be common to all classes. The aristocratic Hooligan, 
the public school and university Hooligan, are familiar 
figures to us ; and even to the ranks of the sacred 
middle class the Hooligan is not an utter stranger. 
He is more disagreeably obvious among the " masses " 
simply because there the restraining forces of law and 
decency are less potent than elsewhere. But to suppose 
that Hooliganism is the peculiar failing of one class of 
society rather than of another is to suppose nonsense- 
Hooliganism is as natural and as universal as breathing. 
It is nothing but rowdyism beside itself. And rowdy- 
ism is animalism unchecked. And animalism is an 
absolutely necessary quality of human nature, without 
which we should either harden into flints of practicality 
or soften into sponges of sentiment. 

Where is the Hooligan manufactured ? For the most 
part in the over-crowded home. Take a typical 
instance. Cory was one of my first lads. As long as 
he remained at school, all went well with him, or fairly 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 49 

well. He attended church, was devoted to the choir, 
took interest in boyish amusements, and was a very 
decent fellow. At fourteen came the daily labour and 
manhood. The lad's heart was still young enough to 
incline him to the company of " boys " ; but he was 
ashamed of his weakness, and piously battled against it. 
After a struggle extending over eighteen months, he 
finally conquered his youth, threw over religion, and 
became a supporter of the walls of the public-house. 

Was this surprising? Let me ask the reader to 
consider this lad's life. Up at five in the morning, at 
work by six, he did not " knock off" until five at night 
at the earliest, and, if working overtime, not until nine 
or ten. Imagine him, then, exhausted and begrimed by 
his long day's toil, coming home shortly after five. He 
goes into the yard, plunges his head into cold water, and 
reappears red and shiny, but averse to conversation. 
He has to wait for his tea, for his father is not yet in. 
Squatting on the fender, he produces a dirty pink paper 
from his pocket, and for a few minutes of blessed 
oblivion lives the amazing life of " Sixteen-string Jack." 
In spite of the mother's plaintive remonstrances, his 
little brothers and sisters persist in pursuing a rough- 
and-tumble game on the floor, and the noise jars on the 
lad's nerves. But presently comes the well-known step 
outside, followed by the head of the family, more than 
likely in a vicious temper and with a string of oaths 
tumbling from his lips. In due course all are seated at 
table. The boy crams into him thick slices of bread and 
margarine, washing them down with cupfuls of black 
scalding tea coloured with the merest suggestion of tinned 
" milk " ; the man eats and drinks more deliberately. 
Not half-a-dozen words pass between father and son. 

E 



50 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

The silence is broken only by the clatter of china, the 
quarrelling of the children, and the complaining voice of 
the mother. 

Tea over, father dons his cap, lights his pipe, and 
announces his intention of " looking round." Mother 
knows what that means. Stifling a sigh, she glances 
pitifully at her son. But he has betaken himself again 
to the fender and the pink paper, while the youngsters 
resume their monkey-tricks with renewed zest. In an 
evil moment one of them cannonades against the big 
brother. He springs up with an angry growl, makes a 
grab at the malefactor, cuffs him soundly, and sends him 
yelping into the passage. The mother's complaining 
voice swells almost into a wail of indignation ; but the 
boy tells her to "shut up." She "shuts up," for she 
fears her son more than she fears God. The sound of 
suppressed sobbing comes from the dark passage. The 
lad glares at the Dutch clock which always tells the 
wrong time ; and, at the moment, the 5.55 factory bells 
ring out and the steam whistles begin to blow. Three 
hours yet before he can go to bed ! The room is stifling. 
He thinks longingly of the choir practice, but he has 
been successfully jeered out of that ; then of the lads' 
club, but he is afraid of being laughed at if he associ- 
ates with " kids." Chaps of his own age are hanging 
around the gin-palace ; he will join them. Perhaps 
there will be some fun going. He goes from the house, 
and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he goes to 
the devil. It is but a step from the outside to the inside 
of the " pub.," and drink and companions are apt to 
make a fellow reckless. Before the " man," who is still 
such a boy, quite realises what has happened, he is one 
of a gang dimly conscious of something bitterly wrong 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 51 

somewhere, and fired with the single purpose of making 
themselves as objectionable as possible to everybody. 

Overcrowding brings in its train so many evils that it 
may be regarded as the most fruitful source of Hooligan- 
ism. But there are other causes, scarcely secondary in 
importance. There is lack of interest in work. The 
young labourer regards his work simply as a means 
of existence. It is nothing more to him. It is un- 
skilled, exacting, and incessant, and his only object is to 
shirk it as often and as much as possible. Being liable 
to dismissal at a moment's notice, he drifts into careless 
habits. The enthusiasm with which, before leaving the 
sixth standard and school for ever, he looked forward to 
" g°i n g t° work like father," quickly dwindles and dies. 
He becomes a drudge. Some outlet he must have for 
his superfluous energy. He finds it in rowdyism and 
violence. 

Then the lad's education has been terribly inadequate. 
Such as it is, it has been almost purely intellectual ; of 
the head, not of the heart. He has been taught to 
think, not to love. But even the intellectual side of 
him has been most imperfectly developed. As a 
" scholar " he possessed the merest smattering of know- 
ledge ; and the moment he left school he was cut off 
with absolute completeness from the only source of 
culture that was ever open to him. In a year or two he 
has forgotten all he ever learnt. He knows nothing of 
the world in which he lives ; he is utterly ignorant of 
history, even of the history of his own country. He has 
never seen Westminster Abbey or the British Museum, 
nor would he be particularly interested in them if he 
had. The training his country has afforded him has 
not improbably excluded such vulgar subjects as 

E 2 



52 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

history, geography, and grammar, although it has 
instructed him in the mysteries of algebra (with the 
accent on the second syllable), and has taught him 
to distinguish a stamen from a pistil. Intellectually he 
is all but dead ; morally he is quite dead. If he wants 
to improve his mind, he can go to the night-school ; if 
he wants to improve his morals, he can go to church or 
chapel. But the chances are extremely small that he 
desires improvement in either direction. i\fter the 
severe strain of the day, all he consciously needs is some 
sort of recreation, the more sensational the better ; for 
every day it is becoming more difficult for him to 
get pleasure out of right things. He cannot enjoy a 
sincere book or a real play. He reads little, and that 
little is vicious or foolish. The " Sixteen-string " book 
is not the best possible guide for him ; nor does 
familiarity with crime, by means of the halfpenny 
newspaper, act as a moral tonic. Occasionally he goes 
to the theatre, but the theatre is of the " variety " order ; 
and even there he prefers the " Vital Spark," flinging up 
her skirts and disclosing her coloured tights, to the 
biograph show of Queen Victoria's Jubilee or of the 
return of the C.I.V.'s. 

Once again. The gratuitous interference which passes 
for philanthropy is a direct incentive of Hooliganism. 
It is a hard saying, but a true one, that woman has had not 
a little to do with the creation of the Hooligan. With 
the best intentions in the world, she has systematically 
coddled and pampered young ruffians who stand in need 
of nothing so much as a man's firm handling. You may 
know at once the lad who has been accustomed to the 
mixture of fearsome anxiety and overweening confidence 
which characterises a woman's dealings with young men ; 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 53 

and you deserve the prayers of all good Christians should 
you be so unfortunate as to have thrown upon your hands 
a woman's Boys' Club. Sentimental and uneducated 
women by the score, who are too weak to exercise the 
mildest authority but by the easy method of tea and 
cake, go down to the East End, collect together a num- 
ber of rough lads, sing and play to them, allow them to 
behave with disgraceful violence, and then beg to inform 
their friends that they are " reforming the lower classes." 

Overcrowding, then, dislike for his daily toil, pitiful 
incompetence, incredible ignorance, low tastes, low 
pleasures, and, finally, the demoralising effect of would- 
be reformers with more money than wit, these are the 
materials of which the Hooligan is made. With nowhere 
to go and nothing to do, with a culture derived from the 
halfpenny newspaper, the penny shocker and the three- 
penny music-hall, with a body tired, a mind vacant, a 
heart depressed, what wonder if the poor lad goes wrong 
and becomes in turn loafer, drinker, and gambler ? What 
wonder if, in view of his own half-clothed body and half- 
fed stomach, every well-dressed and well-fed person 
seems to him to be his natural enemy, and he adopts the 
only means known to him of giving vent to his anti- 
pathy ? 

The redemption of the Hooligan seems, on the face of 
it, almost aggressively obvious. To reform him, we 
must, of course, reform his surroundings ; to prevent his 
creation, we must, of course, make the conditions of his 
creation impossible ! So it would seem. Yet there is 
need of a word of warning. Legislation and private 
philanthropy can do little more than prepare the way 
for reform. To improve the Hooligan's environment 
will do much, but it will not do all. You may give him 



54 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

a decent house to live in ; you may educate his mind to 
enjoy good things ; you may reform his newspaper and 
his novel ; you may provide him with steady, continuous 
occupation, and create in him a pride in the work of his 
hands ; you may build great halls for his physical culture, 
and noble theatres for his recreation : such things will 
assist in the solution of the problem of his existence, but 
they will not solve it. If the children of the East are to 
be redeemed, an influence greater, nobler, more compre- 
hensive than any and all of these must be invoked. 

Some of my readers are old enough to remember 
what Muscular Christianity of the last century was 
going to do for the working-classes ; and they have 
lived long enough to see the training of the body, except 
as a means to an end, utterly discredited. " Educate ! " 
cried the creators of the Board Schools, thirty years ago, 
" and the children will be saved." And yet the children 
are far from being saved ; are far, indeed, from wanting 
to be saved. Have we forgotten what Besant's Palace 
of Delights was going to do for the East End, that East 
End which, for the majority of the novelist's 
readers, meant a few acres of impossible slums, crammed 
with impossibly picturesque people at the point of 
starvation, after the manner of an Adelphi melodrama ? 
But the Palace of Delights has not solved the problem. 
Nor would a hundred Palaces of Delights, so far as I 
can judge. Yet, men with a mere academic acquaintance 
with the East End are still lauding book-learning, 
recreation, and gymnastics as the means of its salvation. 
Nothing could be more absurd. Taken singly or 
together, these supposed remedies for the social sore of 
the East End are, and can be, effective only up to a 
certain well-defined point, and no further. For the 



THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST 55 

certain redemption of the Children of the East we must 
look elsewhere. 

Over the portal of the Temple of Fortune, in the 
Rome of olden days, was inscribed the single word 
" Volumnia." She it was who, by the exercise of that 
power for good with which every woman is endowed, 
saved Rome from her own husband. Near by rose 
a statue of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, those 
mighty espousers of the cause of the poor, who owed 
the inspiration of their self-sacrificing lives to the lessons 
they had learned at their mother's knee. Woman was 
the salvation of ancient Rome ; woman should be the 
salvation of modern England. As to woman, wife and 
mother, we may directly trace the Hooligan's vicious- 
ness, so to woman, as wife and mother, we have a right 
to look for his reformation. For the animal spirits, which 
at their highest assume the form of chivalry, and at their 
lowest that of ruffianism, must be guided, not suppressed ; 
and the woman's hand is the only true guide. Alas ! 
that the East End mother should so little realise her 
great responsibility ! At its root the spirit of Hooligan- 
ism is the spirit of irreverence ; and there is nothing so 
absolutely irreverent in the world as the East End lad. 
To assert that his irreverence is directly traceable to his 
lack of home training is to confine oneself to the strictest 
truth. " I dursn't say a word to my son, or he'd turn 
me out of the house," admitted Mrs. Tonbridge, with a 
flood of useless tears. And she is but one of thousands. 
The influence of the bad home lies at the root of 
Hooliganism ; and if the bad home could be effectively 
dealt with, the Hooligan would disappear. Not in the 
building of Palaces of Delight, but in the making of 
mothers, lies the hope of England. 



5 6 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Could the women of the East End be filled with a 
sense of their solemn duty ; could they but be induced 
to teach their sons the great truths of morality as 
founded upon the greater truths of religion ; could they 
but breast the wave of materialism which threatens to 
engulf all those sanctities of life which have made 
England what she is to-day ; could they but learn to 
point from the law they attempt to enforce to the Giver 
of all law, in a single decade not only would the plague 
of Hooliganism be stayed, but a sweeter and saner social 
order would be established in England than England 
has known for twenty generations. 

Womanhood ! There is the key to the difficulty ; 
there is the solution of the problem. All our energies, 
as Christian workers, should be directed to the task of 
creating a noble idea of wifehood and motherhood for 
the East End. And if, in our little way, we can back 
up the woman's influence by precept and example, so 
much the better. Then our clubs and our classes, and 
our halls and our churches, and our up-to-date sanita- 
tion and our model-dwellings, will prove themselves 
effective instruments of reform, and not, as they are to- 
day, the hollow mockeries of it. 



CHAPTER III 

VICES 

So much, then, for the East End child. What of the 
child grown old ? Well, let us acknowledge at once 
that the life of the East-ender is more or less a closed 
book to us. As our experience of him increases, our 
uhderstanding of him seems to decrease. The problem 
is larger than we anticipated ; more intimate realisation 
of it confounds us. The East-ender's sorrows, his joys, 
his ambitions : what does the most experienced know of 
these, save in the most superficial way ? Keenly desirous 
as we are of entering into the inner meaning of the life 
of the toiler, the most sanguine can boast but very partial 
success. Brotherhood is as yet too new a word ; identity 
of interest has not yet become a reality. Nevertheless, 
the lights and shades of the picture stand out promi- 
nently. Like other people, East-enders have their 
virtues and their vices, their angelical moments as well 
as their diabolical. Certainly they are not altogether 
bad ; quite as certainly they are not altogether good. 

The besetting sin of the East-ender is intemperance. 
The drink habit is all but universal. If a dock labourer 
is invited to a "beano," he forthwith begins to devise 
the biggest possible " booze " at the highest possible 



58 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

price. Tell a factory girl that you are going to take 
her for an outing, and she immediately falls a-dreaming 
of unlimited " treats " of port wine. Boys on a holiday 
regard it as quite the correct thing to get drunk. And 
even women have very little notion of a day in the 
country apart from the bottle. Nevertheless, women 
are not so very culpable. For one intoxicated woman, 
you will probably find two intoxicated boys and three 
intoxicated girls. 

Christmas is the thankfully acknowledged time for 
the most glorious " drunk " of the whole year. Then 
our friend the working-man will go to the public-house 
and lay his golden sovereigns on the counter, with in- 
structions that he is to have drink as long as the 
money lasts. When he becomes incapable, he reels 
home, or is carried home, and " sleeps it off." On 
returning to consciousness, back he goes and repeats 
the process. If there is still a balance on his deposit 
account, he will go at it again and again until it is 
exhausted. Many a man has five or six such bouts 
during the Christmas holidays. 

Worse still, mere children of from thirteen to sixteen 
years old will be seen in the open streets, in the glare of 
the morning, maudlin or utterly helpless. On Christmas 
Eve the factory girl will draw out of her wine-club every 
penny she has been saving for weeks past, and will 
spend the whole of it on cake (a little) and liquor 
(much). I have known her to knock off work at one, 
and be dead drunk by five. 

The drink habit, I repeat, is all but universal. What 
wife would know her husband, what girl her sweetheart, 
should he by any chance return from an excursion 
sober ! To say nothing of weddings — it is not unusual 



VICES 59 

for the lord of creation to present himself at the altar in 
a fuddled condition — the very funerals are frequently 
scenes of sottish revelry, forcibly reminding one of those 
Irish wakes of which we used to read in our childhood. 
Friends are invited from far and near to these curious 
festivals ; and drinking, not infrequently degenerating 
into swinish debauchery, goes on far into the morning. 
Kitty's mother, to use the girl's own words, " nearly fell 
over with surprise " at the sight of her lord coming back 
rom an " outing " as sober as he started. The " outing " 
had been a particularly trying one, as he had been to 
his grandfather's funeral ! 

Employers of labour have assured me that, with the 
best intentions in the world, they have been obliged to 
discountenance the annual " beano." Time was when 
a firm would send one of its junior partners with the 
men ; but the disgusting orgies indulged in on those 
occasions rendered the continuance of the friendly 
custom impossible. Which is a good example of the 
manner in which the working-man works out his own 
damnation. 

The havoc wrought in the East End by intemperance 
is almost incredible. Mrs. Swansdown is one of the very 
nicest women I know, as honest and clean a body as 
you could wish to meet ; yet her home is a hell upon 
earth. Her husband is a drunkard. He spends thirty 
shillings a week in liquor, and he gives his wife the 
same amount to provide food and clothes for nine 
persons, pay the rent, and discharge all other household 
expenses. Swansdown and his kind certainly make pro- 
vision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. But his 
case is not peculiar. I have in my mind an East End 
working-man who actually pays a public-house twenty- 



60 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

four shillings a week to supply him with as much drink 
as he wants, and consumes sufficient beer to make the 
average toper as drunk as the proverbial lord. 

Most East End women, as I have suggested, temper 
their inevitable drinking with discretion ; but there are 
numberless instances in which wives, so far from setting 
an example to their husbands, actually vie with them in 
their extravagance and excess. One of the heaviest 
drinkers I ever knew was Mrs. Flappery. For seventeen 
years her husband had been a teetotaler, but his example 
was thrown away on his worser half. When this woman 
came from work of an evening, she would stand in the 
street and call out, " John, bring me my bible ! " and 
John would hand her the beer-jug. The jug was her 
bible, and drink was her god. In spite of the plentiful 
potations in which she indulged, she would fuddle her- 
self every night with ale and whisky, while her husband 
contented himself with cold water. Patient husband ! 

Mrs. Trooper stopped me in the street one day. 
" Look here, minister/' said she, " I'll tell you the truth. 
I'm drunk. Well, that's my trouble. When I'm sober 
I'm as good a wife and mother as ever stepped in shoe- 
leather ; but when I'm in drink I neglect everything. 
Then I'm a beast. The drink gets hold of me ; it 
grips me ; I don't know what I'm doing ; I get mad. 
I wander out and about, dropping into this pub. and that 
until I'm exhausted. Then I tumble down where 1 
happen to be, and sleep it off." 

Occasionally the East End is visited, in one part or 
another, by an epidemic of intemperance. A plague of 
this kind which occurred in my own experience, is 
merely typical. A messenger arrived hotfoot, pray- 
ing me to go with all possible speed to a certain 



VICES 6 1 

street, as trouble was brewing there. Off went I, and 
found the place in an uproar. Hundreds of people 
thronged the narrow way. Two girls formed the centre 
of attraction, and, to judge by obvious signs of battle, 
had been fighting furiously. The moment I appeared 
on the scene, these unhappy creatures rushed at me, 
and each, seizing an arm, insisted on my hearing her 
version of the story. Eventually they dragged me into 
a house, plumped me down between them, and, in the 
hearing of a large and highly edified crowd, argued the 
matter out on this wise : — 

" I tell you that wot I say is the solim truth," de- 
clared Attie, tugging at my right arm. " You're my 
clergyman, and I wouldn't tell you no lies for the 
world." 

* And 1 tell you," declared Becky, tugging at my left 
arm, " that she's a wicked girl to say so. You're 
my clergyman, and you know 'ow I loves the truth." 

" You ! " cried Attie, flashing scorn at her enemy. 
" Who are you, I sh' like to know. 'E's my clergyman, 
I tell you." 

" 'E's mine, I say." 

" 'E's more my clergyman than wot he is yourn." 

"Garn ! 'E's more mine than wot he is yourn." 

" I love 'im," shouted Attie. 

14 And so do I," shrieked Becky. 

" I love him more nor wot you do," declared Attie, 
with deadly calmness. 

"Oh, you do, do you? Well, we'll see about that," 
retorted Becky, and began to roll up her sleeves 
threateningly. 

" Move on, there ! Move on, please ! " 

The clear voices of the police rose above the roar of 



62 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

the crowd and the sharp, sibilant duet of the two 
disputants. But the people declined to move on. The 
madness of drink was on them. The contagion spread 
like wildfire. In an hour a dozen men and women 
were rolling about, singing and fighting. Another hour, 
and the dozen was a score. As the day waned the 
excitement increased, and when night closed down it 
was a night of shame and violence. During the next 
two days the debauch continued, and on the fourth day 
reached its climax. Thereafter it rapidly declined ; but 
not until the chief actors in this terrible drama of real 
life had been reduced to a state of exhaustion, so that 
they were unable to crawl to the public-house. The 
orgy left its mark behind ; and for weeks afterwards, in 
the general air of unrest, lassitude, and remorse, there 
were not wanting signs of the convulsion through which 
the neighbourhood had passed. 

I have used the word " remorse/' Only those who 
live among these people can realise what they suffer in 
loss of self-respect. For, as is well known, the disease 
of intemperance does not confine its ravages to the 
lowest and coarsest. Victims to this curse are to be 
found among the very kindest and best. Take, for 
instance, Mrs. Bilstead. She is a good woman, in 
spite of her failing ; she strives to do right, to keep 
straight. When she falls, only God and herself know 
what she suffers. Of her a friend once used the word 
" hopeless." I knew better. The struggle of her higher 
nature with her lower was real, and in the end prevailed ; 
and that because she never lost her sense of shame, 
because the sharpness of her self-reproach never got 
blunted. There is now no more sober woman in London 
than Mrs. Bilstead. 



VICES 63 

Quite the saddest aspect of the " drink " question in 
the East End is the misery into which it plunges the 
child's radiant life. Sylvia looked very unhappy after a 
certain birthday party. In anticipation that party had 
seemed everything delightful ; in realisation it appeared 
to have been quite the reverse. The day before it, 
Sylvia's blue eyes had danced with joy, and her comely 
mouth had been wide in prodigal smiles ; the day after 
it, Sylvia's eyes were heavy, and her lips tightly closed 
as with pain. Tears were very near the surface, so I 
spoke gently — 

" You enjoyed your birthday, Sylvia ? n 

She shook her head ; she was too full to speak. 

" Why, how was that ? I thought you were going to 
have such a good time." 

The child clutched at the edge of her pinafore and, 
with averted eyes, began folding it into minute pleats. 

" And father, did he give you that pretty frock, as he 
promised — the red one, you know ? " 

The reminiscence was too bitter. Sylvia dropped 
her pinafore with a choking sob, and lifted to mine those 
heaven-blue eyes of hers swimming in tears. " Father 
got drunk," she said firmly , " horrid drunk, and 
never even wished me many happy returns." And 
with that she fled away like a stricken deer to hide the 
grief no mortal eye might see. 

" Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 
Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 

When I see a barefoot child in the East End, I know 
where his boots are, and I know how his boots got 
there. It is impossible to estimate the awful results of 
intemperance. In my experience, ninety-nine out of 



64 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

every hundred cases of destitution can be directly traced 
to this terrible vice. In fact, intemperance is so 
common in the East End that it overshadows in mere 
importance every other failing. Evidence of the truth of 
this statement is to be found in the popular view respect- 
ing it ; for, in the public estimation, all crimes and faults 
whatsoever, in comparison with it, sink into complete 
insignificance. People who think little or nothing 
of irreligion, neglect of parents, gambling, theft, adultery, 
fornication, will resent an accusation of drunkenness 
with intense indignation, their sensitiveness being in 
direct proportion to their fallibility. For this reason a 
suggestion of intemperance has become quite the most 
paying method of slander. This may be due in part to 
the absurd worship of teetotalism ; but mainly, I think, 
it is a tacit acknowledgment of the supremacy of this 
particular form of viciousness. 

How has the East End reached such a pass ? The 
theological expert will answer ponderously, " Because of 
the abnormal amount of original sin in the working- 
man ! " As a reason, this is almost as logical as that 
actually given me by Sorrian. He was not a bad fellow 
in the main, and usually he was as sober as a judge, if 
not more so. But now and again he would "break 
out " ; and I noticed, or fancied I noticed, that he was 
apt to " break out " when his wife was ill. Incredible 
as this seemed, I nevertheless taxed him with it. To 
my utter amazement he calmly pleaded guilty, adding, 
" Well, it's 'ard on a working-man when his wife's abed. 
It worries 'im, an' Vs got to do something ! " 

Custom has not a little to do with East End intemper- 
ance. Mayfair itself does not grovel to the goddess of 
fashion more abjectly than Mile End. To drink is 



VICES 65 

fashionable ; and in this respect, as in so many others, 
East-enders are as were our forefathers a century ago. 

Beer-drinking is no less than a religion to the 
average East-ender. When poor old Pramner was on 
his death-bed, all his friends foregathered to witness his 
passing. 

" Ah ! he can't las' long," piously ejaculated a 
sympathetic relative. " We 'eard his death-rattle las' 
night." 

" Death-rattle ! " echoed Mrs. Wilderish, with a sniff 
of contempt. " The rattle needn't mean death, not if 
you've got your wits about you. Look at my Lizzie. 
She was a gorner, ifj/ou like. There wasn't much left of 
'er to pray about, I can tell you. Well, we was sitting 
waitin', wen sure enough comes J er death-rattle. Up I 
jumps in a rare flurry, nea'ly knockin' the beer-can over 
— it was a gallon, an' 'eavy, — wen I'm blest if that there 
child di'n't open 'er eyes an' arst for a drink. You don't 
suppose we giv' it 'er? Not 'arf! We tilted that 
gallon-can down her throat, an', Lord love you ! she 
sucked at it an' sucked at it — well, she might 'a drinked 
a pint. That child got better ! Ah, nobody knows wot 
liquor can do 'cept them wot 'as put it to the test. 
Death-rattle, indeed ! Give me beer ! " 

But neither fashion nor fanaticism of itself affords an 
adequate explanation of the tyranny of drink. I make 
bold to say that, on the one hand, the East-ender's 
isolation from the rest of the world, and, on the other, 
the exhausting character of his daily labour, make him 
an easy prey to the habit. Take, for example, the Mill- 
waller. Who so isolated as he ? He is as far from 
civilisation as pole from pole. He is a dweller in a 
land where it is impossible even to take a walk. He 

F 



66 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

would be a brave man who would venture on a stroll for 
pleasure in Millwall. The dismal rows of factories and 
chimney-stacks would oppress him ; the all-embracing 
odours would well-nigh suffocate him. Now he would 
be stopped by the solid road opening beneath his feet, 
and giving place to a sheet of treacherous water ; now 
he would be forced to halt with distressing suddenness 
before a red danger-flag and a headlong trolley. Anon 
a mighty engine, with a score of heavily-laden trucks in 
its wake, would plunge across his path, scattering to right 
and left every living thing in its way. This isolation is 
accepted as a fact. " Now for London ! " cry the drivers 
of the diminutive omnibus that more or less runs to the 
West India Dock Station. The fact is that Millwall, 
although an important part of the greatest city in the 
world, is an outlying primitive village, with all the disad- 
vantages and none of the advantages of village life. And 
so, with modifications, of the greater part of East London. 
What could be more fatal to the best that is in the 
British working-man than such isolation ? 

Nothing, unless it be his labour. He must be an 
exceptional man who can maintain a high standard 
of living when he is forced to earn his daily bread by 
toil that degrades the body, dwarfs the mind, and stunts 
the soul. Let us have done with delusions in the matter. 
Work, if it be ennobling, is the very breath of our nostrils ; 
but work which is merely mechanical, which contains 
nothing calculated to bring out of us the best that is in 
us, is worse than death. And the work of most East- 
enders is of the latter, not of the former kind. No 
wonder they are resourceless ! No wonder their interest 
in life flags and fades ! No wonder they fly to drink to 
find ease, be it but for an hour, from the pain of living ! 



VICES 67 

The drink traffic stands in pressing need of reform. 
At present the most dangerous of all trades is left in the 
hands of those whose only known policy is one of money- 
making. Personal advantage is the mainspring of the 
publican's activity. Consequently he is ready to 
condescend to methods which would put the professional 
welsher to shame. He must make money, honestly if he 
can, dishonestly otherwise ; but make money he must. 
Is it surprising that he does not concern himself with 
the moral condition of those on whom he thrives ? For 
very life's sake he must have customers, and he dare not 
be over-scrupulous in his methods of obtaining them. 

Before the passing of the " Act to prevent the 
Sale of Intoxicating Liquors to Children," the East 
End child was the paid agent of the publican. Some 
of our little ones used to receive a penny a week to 
confine their patronage to a particular house ; and at 
Christmas there was threepence for every child who 
would take the trouble to get it. On the morning of 
Boxing Day, 1897, I looked for the first time on the 
strangest and saddest sight imaginable. Hundreds of 
children, many of whom were mere babies, were fighting 
like little demons to get into the public-houses. I 
recognised one of my Sunday scholars, a boy of six, 
known to Millwall as the " Admiral." His coin secured, 
and held tightly in his fist, he was gallantly breasting 
the on-rushing stream of tousled childhood ; and, as I 
looked, he arrived in the open, breathless but triumphant. 

" Man give me frippence ! " he yelled, proudly flourish- 
ing the coveted coin. 

u What for ? " I asked. 

" I dunno." 

" Because he likes you ? " 

F 2 



68 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

He was an intelligent little chap, with a red round face 
and merry brown eyes. He looked puzzled. 

" Because he is very, very fond of you ? " 

The Admiral shook his head. After a minute's 
reflection, he said, " Oh, yus, I know now. He give it to 
me 'cos I buy father's beer of 'im." 

" Right," I declared, oracularly. " And don't forget it." 

The Admiral laid the matter to heart. Never again 
did he take the publican's bribe. 

On the self-same day Sylvia was among the first to 
secure the precious prize, but her small soul lusted for 
more. Twisting her scraggy hair into a grown-up knot, 
she re-entered the beer-shop and, thus disguised, had no 
difficulty in getting another threepenny-piece. Out she 
flew, demonstratively holding a little silver coin between 
the finger and thumb of each hand, and laughing hysteri- 
cally at her cleverness. A virtuous child who had failed 
to get anything informed me of Sylvia's defection. I 
summoned the culprit to my presence, and, as I had 
done in the case of the Admiral, quietly pointed out the 
degradation and dishonesty of accepting bribes of the 
kind. Sylvia hung her head, and answered never a 
word. But she went back to the public-house, marched 
boldly up to the bar, flung both coins down on the 
counter with a vehemence that made the potman jump, 
and fled from her first real temptation as though the 
tempter in very deed had been at her heels. 

Ah, little Sylvia ! Who knows ? Perhaps that was 
the turning-point of your life. N 

As to the cure of the drink-curse, it will not be found 
in universal total abstinence. A nation of total abstain- 
ers is to me utterly inconceivable. It is precisely as wise 
to prescribe total abstinence from strong drink as a cure 



VICES 69 

for intemperance, as it would be to prescribe total 
abstinence from marriage as a cure for unchastity. 
There are persons, of course, who have no control over 
themselves in either direction, and such should be under 
scientific treatment. But they that are whole have no 
need of the physician ; and I have yet to learn that my 
Christian profession requires me, a healthy person, to 
swallow nauseating medicines or undergo painful opera- 
tions in order to " set an example " to a timorous brother 
who will inevitably die unless the druggist and the 
surgeon have their way with him. Why is temperance 
reform so idiotic ? 

Young Litchen w r as a splendid example to all 
reformers. He was practical to the core. He agreed 
with me that drink is the curse of the working-man ; 
" but," he added with conviction, " I could cure 'im." To 
my astonished " How ? " he gave the following account 
of his great experiment. " As I cured my mate. He 
was a good feller, you know, but the drink took 'im by 
the throat. I see it growin 5 on 'im, an 5 growin' on 'im, 
until I reckoned it 'd send 'im body an' soul to the devil. 
So I thinks over the matter, an' one night I nips raund 
to 'is 'aiise, an' I sez, ' Wot ! 'uggin' the blessid fire ? 
Come an' 'ave a pint, old chap.' He got up from his 
chair like a shot, he did ; but he stops with his cap 
'alf-way to his 'ead, and he says, ' No foolin' now,' says 
he ; ' I've got the bloomin' 'ump, and I can't stand 
nothink. Wot d'you mean by arstin' me to drink ? I 
thought you was a strict T.T.' I says something or 
other to pacify 'im. He wasn't 'ard to persuade, wasn't 
Bill, w'en it was a question of liquor. Then I took 'im 
to the nearest pub., and told 'im to put a name to it. 
1 Four-half,' says he. ' Pint o' four-half, miss/ says I, 



70 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

rappin' with a quid on the counter. Bill eyed the gold, 
drunk his pint, and begins to get cheerful. ' What'll 
you have next ? ' says I. He was a bit surprised, but 
he said he'd like a toothful o' rum. I got him more'n a 
toothful ; and he smacks his lips over it, and said it 
wasn't 'arf bad, it wasn't. Arter he'd 'ad a pint o' stout 
with a drop o' gin in it, he begins to get a bit fuddled. 
I give 'im all he wanted then — whisky, brandy, ale, port 
wine, gin, every blessid thing I could get 'old of. When 
he'd 'ad enough I carried 'im to bed. He stayed there 
two days. I 'eard as he was arstin' for me on the Wens- 
day ; but I kep' out of 'is way for a fortnight, an' by that 
time he'd cooled down. Wen I see 'im at last, he 
comes up to me, an' he says : ' Mate, your fist. You've 
saved me. I'll never touch another drop of the beastly 
stuff as long as I live.' " 

" And ? " I inquired. 

" Not he ! He can't. The smell of it, the sight of it, 
knocks him over. And I'd undertake to cure all the 
drunkards in the East End in the same way, if they'd 
only let me." 

I am not advocating the indiscriminate application of 
Litchen's method, although I think it could be used with 
advantage in certain cases. Its chief value, to my mind, 
lies in its eminent practicality. If we are to succeed in 
stamping out the hideous sin of intemperance, we must 
be practical. Hitherto, we have allowed ourselves to be 
swayed by sentiment rather than by common-sense. 
We have chosen the picturesque but impossible way 
out of the difficulty. Because we have been too lazy 
or too cowardly to think, we have adopted the line 
of least resistance and have preached universal total 
abstinence. I feel more and more convinced that the 
solution of the drink problem is not to be found 



VICES 7 1 

there. If total abstinence must be advocated, let it 
be frankly advocated as a temporary expedient, as a 
mere stop-gap. 

"Shut up the publi-cowses ! " shout our children, on 
their way home from their annual excursion, as they 
pass through the blaze of successive gin-palaces. But 
older and wiser people know that it can't be done. We 
can no more shut up the public-houses than we can shut 
up the butcher's or the cheesemonger's. The abolition 
of the public-house is the ambition of fools. The 
public-house is the workman's club, and, however badly 
managed, will remain his club until a better is forth- 
coming. The most sensible policy is to attempt to 
reform the public-house, not to annihilate it. To con- 
vert the present beer-shop or gin-palace, with its moral 
and physical debasement, into a real " public " house, 
decent, habitable, comely, where pure liquor is sold, 
where there is no compulsion to drink too much, and 
where one may take one's wife and children, and 
meet one's clergyman and doctor, this is the ideal 
towards which every practical reformer should strive. 

Let us be clear on the point. The liquor traffic 
cannot be done away with, but it can be reformed ; and 
it is the duty of the State, no less than that of the 
Church, to bring about such a reformation. We must 
invoke the aid of the State. That foolish old saying 
that no man can be made good by Act of Parliament 
owes its extraordinary reputation to its literal truth and 
moral falsehood. Laws indeed cannot make a man 
good, but they may put him in the way of being good ; 
certainly they should not encourage him to be bad. At 
present they do encourage him to be bad. When they 
permit the planting of a public-house at every street 
corner, to the direct encouragement of drunkenness, 



72 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

obviously they are defective and require attending to, 
And the craftsman to whom we naturally look to execute 
the needful repairs is the State. There can be no need 
for me to insist that the law does encourage drunkenness 
by permitting the multiplication of inducements thereto. 
Every man with eyes in his head can see the thing for 
himself through the length and breadth of the East End. 
There is at least one spot in Millwall whence, without 
moving, I could pitch stones on to the roofs of no less 
than four public-houses, all in a line ! 

And why should we not invoke the aid of the Church ? 
If the aphorism that " To the pure all things are pure " 
be true as well as trite, there is no reason why persons 
known and recognised as Christians should not run at 
least one public-house in every parish ; and provided 
such a house were bright enough, and the liquor sold 
good enough, I see no reason why temperance work 
should not be henceforth as humane and temperate as it 
has hitherto been intolerant and merciless. 

When we have said that the East End working-man is 
addicted to strong drink, we have said all we need as to 
his failings. For strong drink breeds in him a mighty 
progeny of vices, the first-born of which is indifference. 
He is not merely indifferent to religion, as some sup- 
pose. Indeed, it would be hard to say, always with noble 
exceptions, what he is interested in, apart from beer. 
He is reckless of the welfare of England. He cares 
nothing for London. He has no civic interest of any 
description. He will not move a finger to improve his 
surroundings. It is too much trouble for him to go to 
the poll to record his vote. He does not care who rules 
him, so long as he is let alone ; he does not care who 
looks after his children, so long as he is not bothered 



VICES 73 

about them. Corporate feeling, whether in the borough 
or in the city, in the family or in the church, is utterly 
unknown to him. The inertia of the East-ender is a 
thing that cannot be argued about ; it must be ex- 
perienced to be believed. 

On December 20, 1900, I got a " letter" for an 
expensive surgical instrument for a very poor woman, a 
widow, who had been suffering for a long time from a 
painful complaint. A week or two afterwards, the 
visitor discovered that Mrs. Shuffle — that was the 
woman's name — had not been to the hospital to be fitted. 
She got a sound rating for her negligence, and promised 
faithfully to go during the following week. Next week 
came, and with it the indefatigable visitor. Still the 
woman had not been to the hospital ; indeed, she had 
made no effort to do so. The visitor was disappointed, 
but not disheartened. Day after day she returned to the 
charge. For nineteen weeks she fought hard, and in the 
end was obliged to confess herself beaten. In May, 1901, 
five months after the " letter " had been given, it was 
returned with the verbal message, " Mrs. Shuffle sez as 
she can't be bothered about it." In other words, this 
woman preferred to go on suffering indefinitely rather 
than take an hour's journey to town at an inclusive cost 
of sixpence ! 

The East-ender, I say, has no corporate feeling. In 
his opinion, united effort for the betterment of a neigh- 
bourhood is an impossible ideal. What heart-breaking 
attempts I made in the early days to interest the 
Millwall people in sanitation, lighting, housing ! Months 
beforehand, the date of a meeting would be fixed and 
advertised. I would get my workers together, and 
arrange for every house to be visited. I would distribute 



74 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

shoals of handbills. On the appointed evening five, 
seven, perhaps a dozen people would turn up, all in the 
last stage of apathy. Would they but rage ! Would 
they but swear ! So I have often profanely thought to 
myself. But their anger and oaths were reserved for 
such things as a broken teacup or a thoughtless remark. 
They had no time to give, no enthusiasm to spare, for 
sanitation, although the place was reeking with disease ; 
nor for lighting, although the streets were always in 
twilight, and not infrequently in darkness ; nor for 
housing, although many of their homes were not fit for 
animals to herd in. When we were trying to get trees 
planted in the West Ferry Road, I received from a local 
tradesman, whom I had invited to a meeting for the 
furtherance of the scheme, a note to the following effect : 
" Many thanks for yours on this matter, but it does not 
interest me ; for, by the time you obtain it, I hope to be 
miles away" To us, such an exhibition of selfishness 
is by no means remarkable ; but to our descendants 
a hundred years hence that kind of thing will prove 
more conclusively than many finely spun theories what 
barbarians we English were in the twentieth century. 

Nowhere is the East-ender's apathy more pronounced 
than in his treatment of his own children. He is 
utterly indifferent to his son's or his daughter's educa- 
tion. Even Mrs. Stonewright, who represented the high- 
water mark of respectability, and appeared to be devoted 
to her little daughter, sorely disappointed us. 

" I take very good care my girl don't miss her 
school," she said, piously. 

My wife was much impressed. " I am so glad you set 
such value on her education," she observed. 

" Ah, that I do ; for if she stays at 'ome she don't 



VICES 75 

get her free dinner, which does her a world o' good, to 
say nothin' of the savin' of expense." 

As Board School manager, I have tried to interest 
parents in their children's schooling, with disappointing 
results. Once, in response to a general invitation to a 
prize distribution, two women put in an appearance in 
the infant school, but stole away because none of their 
friends were there ; and one woman turned up in the 
senior school, and stayed, although she hid herself 
away in an obscure corner. 

There are boys in my choir whose fathers and 
mothers have never had the curiosity to come and 
see what they look like in their surplices. More 
inexplicable even than that, because surplices are 
associated with religion, is the fact that, although some 
of our young folk sing and dance at our entertain- 
ments with remarkable skill, their parents, with rare 
exceptions, will not give so much as a threepenny- 
piece to see them perform. I have in my mind four 
dear children, the Pouletts, who are particularly enthu- 
siastic and clever. Only on one occasion did their 
father come to see them " go on the stage," as the little 
ones call it, and then he was drunk. 

That is the kind of thing that breaks the East End 
parson. Like " Robert Elsmere," he finds his efforts 
thwarted by the very people whom he desires to benefit. 
It is a mistake to suppose that he goes under because of 
the strain of work. Work strains him, but doesn't break 
him. Apathy kills him ; nothing else. Taedium vitae, 
induced by the awful hopelessness of the task before 
him, is the invariable forerunner of total collapse, and 
has more to answer for in moral as well as physical 
deterioration than the man in the street wots of. 



7 6 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

The apathy of the East-ender is due primarily to 
strong drink. The drink habit vitiates the vitality both 
of body and soul. It blunts the good, it sharpens the 
evil instincts. It dulls the sense, seldom very keen, of 
personal responsibility. It keeps a man poor, and drives 
him to doubtful methods of getting rich. Thus the gambler 
is made. Gambling is a lawless method of repairing the 
waste of extravagance, and there is no channel of extrava- 
gance so exhausting as the public-house. Not more 
deeply was the passion for gambling ingrained in the 
owner of Mark Twain's "jumping frog" than it is in 
the East-ender. It permeates his whole life, and 
explains as nothing else can the " casual " character of 
his existence. The range of his literature is limited, as 
I attempt to show elsewhere ; nevertheless, without 
even excepting the papers devoted to football, the most 
sacred of his scriptures are papers that record the 
betting news. 

Like most evil things in the East End, the trick of 
gambling is acquired early in life. Pitch-and-toss at the 
street corners is of the passionate kind. On a single 
Sunday afternoon a boy will lose as much as five or six 
shillings. It is difficult for the police to cope with the 
evil, even when they are anxious to do so, which is not 
always. For the lads have their scouts at every corner, 
and at the sotto voce cry of * Copper!" dissolve as it were 
by magic. Moreover, there is always a friendly neigh- 
bour to give asylum to the young miscreants. Doors 
left hospitably open afford a convenient means of 
escape. So many streets and alleys are culs-de- 
sac, that a flank movement is denied the most con- 
summate generalship. And it really is difficult for 
a policeman with any dignity to insist, in the face 



VICES 77 

of absolute denial from the innocent-looking tenant of 
a house, that his quarry is in hiding under the family bed. 

The "bookie" is a familiar figure among us. Thanks 
to the wobbly condition of the law with respect to the 
word " place," he can ply his nefarious trade under the 
very noses of the authorities. He must not incite to 
gamble in a public-house, under an archway, or on a 
small plot of waste ground ; but, provided he keeps 
moving, he apparently can do exactly as he likes in the 
street. I wonder when our " betters " will teach us, by 
example as well as by precept, to abstain from the most 
shameless vice of this or any time ; and I wonder 
when the law will cease to regard with toleration in a 
rich man a crime that is severely punishable in a poor 
one. 

The only antidote to gambling is to get severely 
lacerated. But it must be severely. " Once bitten, twice 
shy," does not apply to gambling. The bite that not 
only draws blood, but, as it were, skins and flays the 
sinner, leaving him wounded and ashamed before the 
face of his enemies, is the kind of bite that may, and 
sometimes does, save the soul alive. More often, how- 
ever, the habit, in spite of a hundred maulings, sticks 
well into the prime of life, and by that time has become 
second nature. 

Scraggy was a case in point. Scraggy earned thirty 
shillings a week, and would gamble away twenty to 
twenty-two shillings, on Sunday afternoons, at the inno- 
cent game of pitch-and-toss. On a certain evening, 
after a run of ill-luck unusual even for him, Scraggy 
essayed to return to his lodgings. He found the door 
locked and barred against him. The head of the old 
lady with whom he lodged appeared at a window. 



78 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" Lemme in, mother," murmured Scraggy, with 
wheedling cheerfulness ; for he smelt a storm. 

" You got the money you owe me for last week ? " 
screamed the lady. Not that she meant to scream, but 
her voice was of the high and cracked order, and her 
most amiable tones suggested a threat. The corners of 
Scraggy's mouth dropped ; he detected something 
unusual in the rasping, grating sounds. 

" Stumped ! " he answered briefly. Then he added, 
in a tone that should have melted adamant, " Come 
along ! Lemme in, mother, there's a good old 
sort ! " 

" Not me ! " The old lady exploded like a cracker. 
" Not me, John Thomas ! " — that was Scraggy's real 
name. " No bite or bed shall you have, you careless, 
lazy good-for-nowt, you, until you've paid me for last 
week." 

" If you don't lemme in," threatened Scraggy, " I'll go 
an' drown myself in the bloomin' dock." 

" Do ! " shrieked the old lady, and her voice rose like 
the scream of a steam siren. " Do ! And good rid- 
dance to bad rubbish ! " And with that she slammed 
down the window, and was seen no more. 

Scraggy slept in the open that night. When morn- 
ing came, he washed him in the muddy river ; and it 
was with an empty stomach and a sad heart that he 
presented himself at the dock-gates at five o'clock. A 
severe lesson ; but it didn't cure Scraggy of gambling. 

A few weeks later, the old lady, feeling death near, 
summoned me to her bedside, and requested me to make 
her will ; which I did to the best of my ability. It is 
no breach of confidence to say that John Thomas's name 
did not appear in that important document. For the 



VICES 79 

old lady left her little all to her cousin thrice removed, in 
Claude Street. 

The spirit of gambling affects the East-ender's whole 
existence. He lives from hand to mouth. In a terribly 
literal sense, he " takes no thought for the morrow." 
Lofty independence with regard to the daily toil that 
brings the daily wage is one of his most marked charac- 
teristics. A stern word from a foreman, a questioning 
look from a manager, are sufficient in themselves to 
induce him to fling down his tools and decamp. 
Slingsby was a typical East End working-man. He had 
excellent places, but he left them one after another in 
the most reckless fashion. When I remonstrated, he 
would excuse himself thus : " 'E says I w r asn't a doin' 
of it right. I says, ' Yus, I am.' 'E says, ' No, you 
ain't.' I says, ' Very well, then, do it yourself ; an 5 aiit 
I come/' A man may have been five, ten, twenty years 
in the employ of one firm. No matter ! Let any little 
disagreement arise, and, for the mere satisfaction of 
doing as he likes, he will throw up his job. Wife and 
children are dependent upon him ; he knows perfectly 
well that his action may mean starvation or the work- 
house. Still no matter ! Revenge is sweet, even though 
wreaked on one's own head. 

It is true that such foolhardiness is by no means 
peculiar to the East-ender, but it is also true that the 
East-ender spares no pains to act the part thoroughly. 
He lacks foresight in an incredible degree, and his trust 
in something turning up at the last moment to stave off 
the inevitable is almost touching in its simplicity. He 
gambles with his opportunities, never dreaming that 
there will come a day when the opportunities will cease 
to occur. I give one instance out of many hundreds. 



80 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Rattle, one of my lads, lost his fingers in a sausage 
machine, and was awarded £6$ damages. I suppose 
Rattle Senior had never seen a five-pound note in his 
life. The magnitude of his sudden fortune turned his 
head. With delightful irresponsibility respecting his 
son's future, he determined to be a gentleman for once. 
Throwing up a good situation with the lordliest air, he 
invited a motley crew, friends and neighbours, to share 
his luck. Cabs, music-halls, and drink were the three 
channels through which the sixty-five golden sovereigns, 
translated into twenty times that number of silver shil- 
lings, rushed in a glittering stream. Young Rattle's 
part in the comedy was to fetch the beer and haul his 
father to bed. But alas ! for the fleeting nature of all 
mundane joys ! A month later the Rattles were crying 
for food ; and when I offered the boy a good situation, he 
declined it on the ground that his clothes were in pawn. 
Directly traceable to the gambling spirit is the dis- 
honesty of the East-ender, which takes the form rather 
of " picking " than of " stealing." Comparatively few 
East-enders are big thieves ; but still fewer are no 
thieves at all. Theft of the petty kind is almost uni- 
versal. Respectable men think it no sin to appropriate 
odds and ends in the yard, the dock, or the factory. 
Women and girls will steal their employers' jam and 
pickles. Boys will take anything they can lay hands on. 
In our church life this miserable habit used to be pain- 
fully obvious. We never held a bazaar or rummage 
sale without articles of more or less value mysteriously 
disappearing. The children systematically cut the rings 
off the kneeling-cushions in church ; and on several 
occasions the various charity boxes were broken open 
and their contents abstracted. 



VICES 8 i 

There arc certain minor failings — minor, that is to 
say, in themselves, but by no means in their results — 
about which a word or two should be said. East-enders 
have little or no power of tenacity. A thing taken up 
with burning enthusiasm will be discarded in a month 
with the most chilling indifference. New workers are 
apt to be deceived by this semblance of zeal, and to 
think that the old stagers have lost their grip. But they 
soon discover their mistake ; so much so, indeed, that I 
make a point of warning my helpers, on their first 
arrival, against trusting too much to appearances. 

Inconstancy of the kind admits of a very simple 
explanation. In a marked degree the East-ender ex- 
hibits the defects of his qualities. His desire to please 
is so extreme that he rarely means what he says. He 
will readily make a promise, and as readily break it. 
He is too courteous to refuse a request, although he 
may be quite aware of his utter inability to comply with 
it. He is so amiable as to be untrustworthy ; and 
whereas his confidence in one of his own class is deeply 
touching, the consciousness of his own untrustworthiness 
begets in him a strange distrust of all others. For 
nearly two years after I settled in Millwall I was re- 
garded with obvious suspicion. There seemed to be 
a perpetual interrogation on my neighbours' lips, 
" What on earth do you want here ? " Discussions as to 
why I had come, and what I intended to do, were end- 
less. Prophecies flew back and forth that a few months 
at the very most would bring about my shame-faced 
departure. And, indeed, at one time it seemed as 
though the dogged and obstinate doubt of the people 
would prove insurmountable. Needless to add, there 
was no lack of mischief-makers to add fuel to the fire 

G 



82 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

of prejudice. Had it not been for such, the opposition, 
which took twenty-four months to overcome, might have 
died down in six. Perhaps ! I am not sure. 

Inconsistently enough, on the other hand, the East- 
ender resents any lack of confidence in him. He is 
positively annoyed if you distrust him. For example, 
the Millwall 'bus has no conductor ; so it is customary 
for one passenger to collect and pay for all. No Mill- 
waller would think of quarrelling with this tradition. 
To accept the services of the person in the corner is a 
matter, not only of policy, but actually of conscience. 
I once saw a passenger — a stranger, of course — refuse to 
entrust his penny to a ferocious-looking gentleman of 
unimpeachable integrity, in a fur cap and a spotted 
neckcloth ; and the unconcealed contempt with which 
that stranger was regarded by the whole omnibus was a 
thing to make one shiver. 

But enough of fault-finding. I have put down the facts 
as they occur to me, seeking neither to justify nor to 
condemn. How far the East-ender is to be held re- 
sponsible for his actions I hope to discuss later on. 
Meanwhile, let it be remembered that he is primitive but 
not innocent, knowing but not educated, civilised but not 
humane. 



CHAPTER IV 

VIRTUES 

FOREMOST among the virtues of the East-ender is 
his good-humour. Good-humour is the redeeming 
point in his character, the salt that sweetens his very 
impurities, the lever that lifts him from the gutter where 
he is prone to lie all too complacently. He has many 
failings, many right-down vices ; but through them all, 
rendering them almost tolerable, runs that rich vein of 
gold. Man or woman, the East-ender is nothing but a 
big, rollicking baby. See him on his yearly " beano." 
See her on her annual outing. The day is begun, 
continued, and ended in good-humour of the irrepres- 
sible kind. An East End Sunday School excursion 
must be seen to be believed. To temperaments not so 
richly endowed, the good-humour of all, from the 
oldest old lady to the latest brand-new baby, almost 
smacks of the supernatural. And the home-coming ! 
What an outburst of genial welcome from those who had 
been slogging in the oppressive heat of the factory or 
the kitchen the livelong day! What an absence of 
self in the royal demonstration that awaited us ! 
Millwall would be en fete when we arrived, and the 
whole population in the streets. The long line of 

G 2 



84 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

brakes, escorted by a bodyguard of bicyclists gleaming 
and fantastic, would form a dazzling stream of fire as it 
swept down the West Ferry Road. In our honour 
lights would burn at a hundred windows, and fireworks 
of every hue hiss skyward. In a blaze of white and 
crimson glory we would draw up at St. Cuthbert's, 
roaring " Sweetheart May " at the top of our voices, and 
almost succeeding in drowning the " band " of two in 
their blaring interpretation of the " Dublin Fusiliers." 

The East-ender's good-humour exhibits itself as 
much in 

" Quips> and cranks, and wanton wiles," 
as in 

" Nod, and becks, and wreathed smiles." 

That is to say, he is fun-loving as well as amiable. 
His capacity for fun is enormous ; sometimes manifest- 
ing itself in sheer waggishness, at other times in the 
driest of dry banter, again in pungent and even delicate 
wit. Rarely is his smartness cruel. When it is so, it is 
jagged rather than keen. It does not cut ; it tears. His 
wit is easy and refreshingly original. Also, which is a 
great thing, it is without fear. 

Our maid Mylie was a wag quite of the first class. 
" Master's going about like a wet week," was her free- 
and-easy commentary on my appearance during an 
attack of the " blues." " He gave me a look like a 
summons," said she, referring to the facial contortions of 
the baker when she denounced his bread as half-baked. 
" Don't hang your clothes on the floor," she remarked, 
as the immaculate overcoat of a visitor slid off the hall- 
table where he had placed it. 

The children used to worry Mylie considerably. She 



VIRTUES 85 

was always threatening them with the direst punishment 
if they did not desist from staring at her when she was 
at work. " Little miserables ! " she would cry, with 
withering scorn. " What are you looking at ? Do you 
think I'm a penny show? Be off with you, or Til give 
you what Paddy gave the drum." 

Occasionally she would exhibit a tendency to topsy- 
turvy humour of a somewhat trying kind. She over- 
slept herself one morning, and remarked on the unusual 
occurrence, " The milkman woke me, bawling out, or I 
should 'a' been down before." There is a mental entangle- 
ment about that statement which defies unravelling. 

But for sly and, at the same time, keen humour com- 
mend me to the factory girl. 

" I can't make it out," observed a member of the 
Hopeful Club, wrinkling her brows and biting her lips 
in mental travail. 

"Make what out?" asked Miss Sackerby. 

A merry twinkle shot from the girl's eyes. " I can't 
make out why the only laidies as comes 'ere are men- 
'aters, widders, and old maids." 

It was found necessary to eject a damsel from the 
club for bad behaviour. When she got to the door, she 
screamed out at the top of her voice, " No wonder you 
laidies can dress as you do ! Where does all our 
ha'pennies go to ? That's wot I want to know. I call 
it a beastly shaime ! " And with a defiant flourish of her 
draggled skirts, she flung out of the room. 

It is interesting to observe, at times, the struggle 
between the natural kind-heartedness of the East-ender 
and his keen sense of what is fit and proper. One of my 
colleagues used to preach sermons that were very pro- 
tracted. " A nice gentleman," was the criticism passed 



86 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

on him by a devout hearer. " A very nice gentleman 
indeed ; but " — with a reminiscent sigh — " he do 'ang it 
out so long!' 

Rascality is not averse to an occasional " quip/' Dr. 
Family was called in to see a wretched woman in the last 
stages of disease and dirt. Two days later the poor 
creature died. At the inquest the coroner censured her 
husband for gross neglect. The fellow lowered his eyes 
guiltily, shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, seemed 
to be hunting about unsuccessfully for the " any excuse " 
that is " better than none," and finally murmured, " I'm 
very, very sorry, sir ; and it shall never occur again " ! 

We have all met, at some time or other, the pious 
beggar who was eloquent in his assurances that our 
bounty towards him would not be forgotten at Head- 
quarters, and made no effort to reimburse us himself. 
But I think young Morsey's jeu d* esprit would take a 
lot of beating. He owed money to a woman who had 
been very good to him, but he could not see his way to 
settling the debt ; so it was agreed that things should 
remain as they were until his worldly prospects were 
improved — an extremely unlikely contingency, by-the- 
by. Young Morsey was deeply affected by his friend's 
kindness ; but surely it was with his tongue in his 
cheek that he wrote to her : " I cannot tell you how 
touched I am by your generosity ; and if the Lord don't 
pay you back, I will." 

Sapper's humour was peculiar to Sapper. A gaunt, 
sinewy man was Sammy, as he was affectionately called, 
short of stature, of any age between thirty and sixty, 
hollow of cheek, mild of eye, with a Saturday morning 
chin as bristly as a scrubbing-brush, and a pair of 
spectacles which never yet sat straight on his nose. I 



VIRTUES 87 

am sure that no man born of woman was ever quite like 
him. He was distinctive ; and so was his humour. 
Commenting on the manifold virtues and infirmities of 
a young friend of his, he observed, as he gazed at me 
through his spectacles all askew, " Yes, sir, the boiy's of 
very weak intellect — and he reads the Bible every day." 

" The boiy," he said on another occasion, referring to 
the same youngster, " belongs to the Band of Hope and 
the Sunday School — and I don't think he'll ever be 
good for much." 

He was loyal as love, was Sapper. Rivalry in church 
matters suffocated him. That anybody should presume 
to do what we at St. Cuthbert's declined to do, or could 
not do, filled him with wondering contempt. One day 
he told me about an East End parson who, with the help 
of unlimited tea, was drawing hundreds of working-men 
to his services. I was deeply impressed. 

" And what proportion are really won for Christian- 
ity ? " I asked. 

The ghost of a smile flickered over Sapper's thin 
brow r n face as he replied, "Before we answer that 
question, I think we had better wait until the tea-party 
is over." 

The quaint and curious sayings of the East End 
youngster would fill a volume. Ask a Millwall lad if he 
would like to go to the seaside, and, ten chances to one, 
his answer will be, "Seaside? Not me! I'd rather 
have a penn'orth o' Seabreeze off a whelk-stall." 

Coming out of church one summer evening, I was 
greeted with a shout of derision from half-a-dozen 
youngsters : " You think yourself a religious man, but 
you're not. No, no, no ! Oh dear, no ! " Such apparent 
rudeness I take to be merely love of chaff. It is not 



88 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

really meant ; or, at any rate, it is not meant much. 
Surely the sobriquet of " Dicky Free," which I acquired 
soon after my advent to Millwall, may have been 
originally spoken with some contempt ; but the same 
words a year or two later connoted affection of a very 
real kind. 

Where to go to for our summer excursion was a 
problem which claimed our attention for long weeks 
before the appointed day. Sophie once suggested 
the Zoo. "But they'd keep you there," quietly observed 
a choir boy. 

On a bitter evening in the winter of 1897 the Rev. 
J. H. A. Law, the genial Secretary of the Church of 
England Temperance Society, formally inaugurated our 
Band of Hope work. I was in the chair. The east 
wind had played havoc with my features generally, and 
with the most prominent feature of my face in particu- 
lar ; and I devoutly hoped that, for once, the argument 
ad rem would be omitted. What was my horror when 
Mr. Law, in his most impressive manner, observed, 
" Now, children, whenever you see a man with a red 
nose, what does it mean ? " 

There was not a moment's hesitation. A hundred 
pairs of eyes were turned upon me like a hundred pairs 
of searchlights alive with human waggishness ; and a 
hundred voices shouted as one — 

" Drink ! " 

Can the reader dimly imagine what it is to 
live in daily contact with such supernaturally sharp 
mites ? 

Leda Chaud was Nina's bete noir. Leda gave herself 
airs because her uncle was an undertaker. She was one 
of those persons who " shake hands with you like that/' 



VIRTUES 89 

as Grossmith used to sing at the Savoy ; that is to say, 
she would lift your hand high in the air as if under the 
impression that it was an interesting physiological 
specimen, and let it drop flop as though convinced, on 
inspection, that it was not. The child was undeniably 
snobbish ; and Nina, being a true East-ender, hated 
snobbery like the devil. One day, Leda arrived 
weighted down with a notable piece of news : she had 
discovered that I was not a gentleman, nor my wife a 
lady. Nina shrugged, and cast about for a rejoinder. 
" How do you know ? n she said at length, rather 
lamely. 

" Because no gentleman or lady would live in such a 
place as Millwall," said Leda. " And, besides," she 
added nimbly, as Nina was about to crush her with the 
retort obvious, "my Aunt Priscilla is a lady, and she 
associates with earls." 

The breach in Leda's armour yawned. Nina had no 
pity. Like a flash she thrust home through flesh and 
bone — 

" If your aunt was a real lady, she'd associate with 
countesses, not with earls." 

It was a repartee worthy of Dr. Johnson. 

For pure facetiousness the following instances are 
worth chronicling. 

Before St. Cuthbert's was built we were obliged, as I 
have said, to hold the lads' club in our house. At that 
time the club's " properties " consisted of a dozen chairs 
or so and a few dog-eared picture-books. Jim Tristram 
was monitor. His duty was to see that the chairs were 
ranged around the wall, and that the books were within 
easy reach. One evening I arrived at the club rather 
late. Jim met me on the threshold. 



9 o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" Hullo ! " I cried. " Everything ready ? M 

" Yus, everything. On'y there's no books and no 
chairs." 

" Remember that Jesus counts your mother's tears 
when you are naughty," said Mrs. Free, impressively. 

"Please, miss," interrupted Keddon, "does He count 
the naughty boy's tears wen 'e's walloped?" 

" And then all the locusts disappeared," observed 
Molly, one of my home-grown Sunday School teachers, 
concluding an edifying lesson on the Ten Plagues. 
" They went like magic. Now where did they go ? Yes, 
Walter?" 

" John the Baptist ate 'em," answered the eight-year- 
older, with a grin that set the class in a roar. 

" Muvver, the baby wants yer," wailed Adelina's 
youngest but one, and kept on in a dirge-like tone until 
my nerves began to tingle warningly, " Muvver, the baby 
wants yer." 

But Adelina was negotiating a little matter at the 
" Dockers' Arms," with Goggles, her familiar, and could 
not be disturbed for love, although she might have been 
for money. The minutes passed, the doleful chant con- 
tinuing without intermission — 

" Muv-ver ! The ba-aby wants yer." 

Suddenly Adelina appeared, her youth renewed like 
the eagle's. 

" Muv-ver ! " shrieked the youngest but one, " the 
ba " 

" Oh, well ! Wot does 'e want ? " cried Adelina, wiping 
her mouth with the back of her hand. " Anybody 'd 
think 'e'd committed a serious crime, by the fuss you're 
makin'." 

Next to his humour I should say that the East-ender's 



VIRTUES 91 

most striking virtue is his affectionate clannishness. 
He will do anything for his own. Is a woman 
sick ? There will be no lack of willing hands to help 
with the children and look after the husband. Is 
a neighbour " badly off," which in East End vernacular 
means starving? Somebody's pocket is always full 
enough to spare a copper or two. It is not unusual for 
a whole street to subscribe to a present in money for a 
decent man or woman unusually down on their luck ; 
and the " friendly lead " for a poor fellow who has met 
with an accident, or is otherwise hors de combat, is an 
established institution. 

I know a dear white-haired old body, very poor, very 
worried, and often very hungry, who for six years has 
cared for a woman casually thrown across her path, 
tending her in sickness, sharing a crust with her in 
health, for sheer love, without money and without 
price. 

Stoneham was dying of wasting sickness. He had no 
wife ; his children were too young to nurse him. One 
day Mrs. Glossop, a quiet, mild-eyed, reserved sort of 
woman, dropped in, as it were casually, and took the reins 
of government. She washed and mothered the children, 
tidied up the place, and tended and comforted the 
sick man. Day and night she stuck to her self-imposed 
task. She had a husband and children of her own, and 
her cup of sorrow was fuller than most people's. I 
marvelled at her abnegation. One day she explained 
the matter to me. " You see," she said, steadily regard- 
ing me out of those mild eyes of hers, "you see, 
Mr. Free, 'e ain't got no wife, an' there's no one 'ere to 
'elp 'im if I don't. Wot's more, my sweetheart's on'y 
too glad for me to do it, and 'e's ready at any time to 



92 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

give a 'and when the pore feller wants moving an' so 
on." 

And these are the people to whom we presume to teach 
religion ! 

Take that much-misunderstood creature, the factory- 
girl. Under her rough exterior the heart of a woman 
beats high with love, if not with hope. It is true that 
she is a girl to be feared. That familiar terrible yell of 
hers, that screech of laughter with which she greets the 
well-dressed stranger, are almost demoniacal. But the 
yell and the screech are not all of her. Somewhere 
hidden away from our ken is her better nature. Her 
pity, her tenderness, her mercy are unequalled. Night 
after night, although working like a slave through the 
day, she will sit up with a sick mate, even putting aside 
out of her scanty earnings a daily portion for her friend's 
nourishment. 

One of my communicants is a good soul who 
works at a factory for a weekly wage of nine shillings. 
Hearing that she was often pinched for food and firing, 
I resolved to give her a pension of sixpence a week. A 
ridiculously small sum, the reader will think. But only 
those who live in intimate knowledge of the poor can 
possibly realise what sixpence a week means in the 
hands of a thrifty body. Well, Miss Theobald — that 
is the dear woman's name — gratefully accepted the 
pension, and I thought all was ended. In a week or 
two, however, came one of my visitors with a curious 
story. Miss Theobald " felt it on her conscience " that 
she ought not to have accepted the pension, when so 
many others — for example, Mrs. Shillishall — were so 
much more in want of it than she. Would I kindly 
transfer it? I pooh-poohed the idea. I said it was 



VIRTUES 93 

nonsensical, sentimental. I invented some very hard 
names for it. Followed another message, and then 
another ; finally, shoals of messages. Literally bom- 
barded, I had to surrender. " You know," said Miss 
Theobald, when next we met, " I'm not badly off, am I ? 
— not really and truly ? It's nine shillings every week, 
you know, reg'lar. That's where it's so good — it's 
reg'lar." 

Yet such splendid disinterestedness the East-ender 
reserves for u his own " ; we " others M may claim no part 
or lot in it. As the stranger may not look for confi- 
dence, so he must not expect kindness. If he would 
secure either boon, he must become naturalised by 
living, during a space of years, in the midst of these 
people. Once he has gained their affection, the rest will 
be found easy. His interests will be protected with a 
jealous watchfulness that reminds one of nothing so 
much as a mother's care for her offspring. During my 
summer holidays I have again and again left my house 
entirely unprotected. I have made no request that it 
should be guarded, yet vigilant eyes have covered it by 
day and by night ; and woe betide any intruder who 
should venture to try a bit of housebreaking on his own 
account ! The confidence of the East-ender is a very 
precious thing when you get it, but it takes a great deal 
of getting. 

The well-known independence of the East-ender has 
much to do with this realisation of kinship. He may 
have little individuality, but the sense of brotherhood is 
strong within him. I have known several cases of 
young people, as well as old, who have been kept off the 
rates by the generosity of their neighbours ; and as for 
those who, time out of mind, would have gone to bed 



94 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

hungry but for the bite and sup offered them by the 
" lady over the way M or " the person at number four/' 
well, their name is legion. Consequently begging, as ordi- 
narily understood, is unknown, is indeed inconceivable, 
in the East End ; and complete immunity is enjoyed 
from the gentlemanly impostor so familiar to the West 
End clergy, who poses as an officer, a doctor or an 
author. 

Of course, there are cases of direct begging, chiefly 
through the medium of children who are carefully 
posted up ad hoc, but the results are not always such as 
to warrant a repetition of the experiment. Scupper's 
chubby youngster once came to me with a pitiful story. 
" Nuffin' to eat since yest'y," he said, gulping down his 
sobs. " Work ? Yes, farver's in work, but 'e come 'ome 
drunk las' night wiv all 'is money gorn." Scupper's 
chubby youngster returned home empty-handed. 

" Wot did you say ? " screamed his mother. 

" I said as 'ow we 'adn't 'ad nuffin' to eat 'cause farver 
got drunk, and " 

Scupper's chubby youngster found it difficult to sit 
down for forty-eight hours. 

But such cases are exceptional. As a rule the East- 
ender, man, woman or child, is too noble-minded to 
beg ; and the vast majority of breaches of the rule are 
directly traceable to the abominable traffic in morals 
which we have permitted under the guise of philan- 
thropy. 

It is this same independence of spirit which prevents 
the self-respecting toiler from flaunting his troubles before 
a gaping public. To the casual visitor to the East End, 
the little houses, the quaint shops, the busy thorough- 
fares convey a sense of robust prosperity ; but those 



VIRTUES 95 

who make their home there could tell many a tale 
of mute suffering, could point to many a home kept 
together by dint of incredible self-sacrifice. I shall never 
forget the quite royal pluck and pride of the wife of a 
working-man friend of mine. It was in the dog-days of 
1904. My friend had been "put off," and funds had 
fallen to zero. Every morning, for five unspeakable 
weeks, this man rose very early and started forth on his 
interminable search for a job, only to return home every 
evening, sick and heart-broken with failure. The cup- 
board got barer and barer. One by one the bits and 
bobs of furniture, which had been acquired in the days 
of prosperity, disappeared : the deep basket-chair in 
which the man loved to stretch himself when smoking 
his evening pipe ; the cheap and gaudy little clock that 
ticked away at a furious rate with a face of serenest 
calm ; the one or two precious heirlooms that spoke 
with mute eloquence of the prosperous farmhouse on the 
Yorkshire moors — a silver spoon thin as paper, an ancient 
brass snuff-box that shone like gold, and so on. The 
day came, and soon came, when every available article 
had found its way to the pawnshop, never to be redeemed 
but in imagination. Then the woman, with stern, set lips, 
made her resolution. On a stifling morning in July, she 
took her two youngest children, the one on her arm, the 
other by the hand, and started for Paddington and the 
Hampshire fruit-farms. " I must share the burden," she 
said to her husband. " You can face the world better 
with three than with six. Look you after those ; God 
helping me, I will look after these." In sixty seconds 
she could have sent me word that she was starving, and 
in ten minutes she should have had all she needed. But 
her pride said her nay. She reeled with hunger as she 



9 6 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

started with her bairns in the still morning. Twice on 
the way she nearly fainted ; every few hundred yards 
she was fain to sit down on a friendly doorstep and 
rest. And throughout that terrible journey, over miles 
of flagstones and across innumerable streets, she never 
condescended to ask for a penny. It was silly ; it was 
ridiculous ; it was almost criminal — what shall I say ? 
It was magnificent. 

Ultra-independence of the kind has its amusing 
aspects. For instance, our friend Sapper's notion of 
the object of a sick club is positively uncanny. One 
night he came to me complaining of his head. He 
looked wretchedly ill. " Have you seen a doctor ? " 
I naturally asked. 

" No, that I haven't, sir." 

(He was the first and about the only person in Millwall 
who ever called me " sir," and I never really got used 
to it.) 

" But youVe got your club doctor ? " I remonstrated. 

" Oh, yes, Fve got my club doctor right enough, and a 
varry nice gentleman he is, too. I've paid for my club 
doctor for many a long year." 

" Then why not go to him now you're feeling ill ? " 

" Well, sir, it's like this : I don't like to trouble the 
gentleman." 

" Stuff and nonsense ! ' Trouble the gentleman,' 
indeed ! Why, it's his duty to look after you." 

" No, I don't like to trouble him," repeated Sapper, 
meditatively scratching his ear. " If I was to see him, 
I know he would do me good. But I'm not the man 
to impose on him — that's how it is." 

" You mean to tell me ? " I began, incredulously. 

" I mean to tell you, sir," he interrupted, with dignity, 



VIRTUES 



97 



" that I've only applied to my club doctor twice in 
twenty years." 

Such independence is not easily distinguishable from 
stubbornness ; and, truth to tell, the East End abounds 
in examples of obstinacy of that extreme kind. Our 
maid Cassandra, for instance, was incarnate perversity. 
When she dusted my study table, she would invariably 
place the inkstand on my right hand instead of in front 
of me. In itself that was an insignificant variation on 
the normal arrangement ; but it confused me, and I 
frequently found myself dipping the pen into empty air. 
So, every morning, I religiously restored the inkstand to 
its ordinary position. Every evening, Cassandra quite 
as religiously moved it back again. At last, losing all 
patience, I summoned the girl. " What do you mean by 
persistently moving the inkstand out of its place ? " 

" I likes it better there," said Cassandra. 

Talking of maidservants reminds me of the quite 
imperturbable independence of Mylie. Slasher, the 
millionaire, called on me one day on business. As a 
matter of fact, he had come to tell me what he thought 
of me, and was bursting with his message. In his 
agitation he neglected to put the door-mat to its proper 
use. Mylie surveyed him through her spectacles with 
the utmost astonishment. For once she was speechless. 
Not until Slasher was half-way upstairs did she recover 
herself. Then she made up for lost time. 

" 'Ere, you ! " she cried, " we're not ac-^^Z-omed in 
this 'ere 'ouse to 'avin' people walkin' the mud all over 
the place. You jest come back and wipe your feet, please." 

The great man turned with a scowl, caught a danger- 
ous flash in Mylie's black eyes, hesitated, stopped — came 
back and did as he was told, like a good little boy. 

H 



9 8 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Mylie intended no offence. It was merely her East 
End independent way. Such independence occasionally 
assumes the most extraordinary forms. It was my prac- 
tice on Whit-Monday, for example, to take my choir to a 
friend's house to tea. Before sitting down to table, we 
were accustomed to retire to the scullery for a wash 
and brush-up. " Shall I leave my coat here ? " asked 
Darwin, on one occasion, when he had finished his 
ablutions. " Certainly," I answered, supposing that he 
referred to his overcoat. Something distracted me for 
the moment. The next thing I was conscious of was 
the lad sitting at the tea-table in his shirt-sleeves. 

" Bill ! " I shouted (in a whisper), " what on earth are 
you doing ? Come here ! " 

The boy followed me into the scullery with his usual 
mystified expression considerably deepened. 

" What's wrong ? " he asked. " Not go into tea 
without my jacket ? Why, we never put on our jackets 
at ome." 

At that moment, Cory, who was fourteen, and knew 
everything, swaggered in. 

" Hullo ! M he cried, catching sight of Darwin in the 
act of resuming his discarded garment. " What are you 
up to, you donkey ? You don't suppose you're goin' in 
to tea with your jacket on, do you ? " 

" I am that" Darwin declared, with the assurance of 
conscious rectitude ; " it's the fashion 'ere." 

" Who are you gittin' at ? " retorted Cory, with exceed- 
ing scorn. " Don't you think I know ? " 

Independence of the kind is apt to stagger the 
stranger. On the very first Christmas Day I spent in 
the East End, I received a considerable shock to my 
susceptibilities. At the close of the morning service, 



VIRTUES 99 

according to my invariable custom elsewhere, I wished 
the congregation " A Merry Christmas ! " Other con- 
gregations had always received this expression of good- 
will with stolid indifference or mild astonishment, 
occasionally accompanied by a liberal use of the 
lorgnette. Not so with these delightfully original 
people. The words had scarcely passed my lips, when 
the unexpected response burst forth, " Same to you, 
Mr. Free ! And many of 'em ! " What more natural ? 
Therein lies the charm of the East-ender. He is so 
guileless and, therefore, so unconventional. One day, 
Rivoli walked into church in the middle of the service 
with his hat on and his jacket off. He was surprised, 
and rather hurt, when the breach of etiquette was 
pointed out to him. He "didn't mean no harm, he 
was sure." No, he didn't mean " no harm " ; his action 
was the natural result of his independent upbringing. 

Too much ceremony is not considered the thing. 
More than a mere soupgon of the quality is regarded 
as unbecoming. Sometimes, indeed, the remotest 
flavour of it is deemed unnecessary. I discovered this 
characteristic in the winter of 1889, when I invited our 
people to meet the present Bishop of London, then 
Bishop of Stepney, at an evening party. For a whole 
week we did not receive a single answer to our invita- 
tions. My wife was nervous. I assured her that it was 
all right, reminding her that we were still three weeks 
from the eventful night. Another week passed — still 
no answers. Then I began to get scared myself. When 
a third week had slowly drifted after the other two, and 
there was no sign whatever from the three hundred, I 
really grew alarmed. My wife was almost in tears. 

11 What does it mean ? " she cried. " Is nobody 

H 2 

iLofC. 



ioo SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

coming? Or, if they are coming without letting me 
know, how am I to cater for them ? " 

At the eleventh hour, light came. I was fingering 
one of the invitation cards, when my eye fell on four 
letters. 

" Good heavens ! " I exclaimed. " That explains it" 

" What explains what ? " 

"'R.S.V.P.'!" 

The cloud of a great fear, quickly followed by a burst 
of sunlit hope, broke over my wife's face. She laughed. 
" Well, if that's all, it's easily remedied." 

" How, pray ? " 

" By translating." 

" You think I'm going to these good folk ■ ? " I 

began ; but indignation choked me. Turning on my 
heel, I swung out of the room. 

Within twenty-four hours two unexpected opportuni- 
ties of explanation presented themselves. Young Jack 
Fratter broke the ice, and Rivers carted it away, as it 
were. Jack had been having a hot argument with 
Tollawag, and on my arrival for the choir practice I was 
greeted with a torrent of questions — " What about them 
cards ? " " Is Tollawag right ?" " It don't mean that, 
do it ? " " What does it mean ? " 

I tried to look cool and collected. " Do you refer to 
the invitation cards ? " I asked. 

There was a chorus of eager " Yeses," as the boys 
crowded round me. 

" Don't you understand what they mean ? " 

A doleful chorus of " Noes " carried conviction. 

" They are invitations to a party." 

" A party ! ' murmured Tollawag, the hot blood 
mounting to his temples. 



VIRTUES 101 

" There you arc ! I told you so ! " said Jack. " You 
would 'ave as it was " 

u What ? " I asked, encouragingly. 

" The three-hours' service!" cried the boy, fixing the 
flushed and discomforted Tollawag with an unutterable 
look. 

Next day, Rivers stopped me in the street, 

" I haven't answered the note yet," he burst out, 
spasmodically, " because — because — to tell you the truth, 
because " 

I broke in on his stammering speech with rude but 
saving power, and in twenty seconds had explained 
matters to his satisfaction. 

It was a most successful evening. The genial Bishop 
was at his very best, and put everyone at ease. " All 
your own people, Free?" he asked, looking with some 
astonishment at the crowded hall. 

" All my own people," I assured him, proudly. 

" Let us walk round," he said. 

I introduced several people to him, and all went w T ell 
for a time. Then came an unexpected hiatus. " And 
this ? " said the smiling Bishop, extending his hand to a 
rosy-cheeked damsel. Horror ! The young woman 
was a perfect stranger to me. Searching despairingly 
for help, I caught Tallboy's eye. He must have inter- 
preted my look in the light of a challenge. 

" My wife couldn't come, so I brought my upstairs 
lodger," he explained, unabashed. 

I hurried the Bishop away, but only to jump out of 
the frying-pan into the fire. Baxter stood radiant in the 
midst of a blushing circle of femininity. The Bishop 
seemed to suspect something. He looked sideways at 
me. I shook my head sorrowfully. There was an 



102 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

awkward pause. But Baxter was equal to the occasion. 
With a comprehensive wave of the hand, he introduced 
the unknown ladies — " Mrs. Plasher and the four Miss 
Plashers, from Wapping ! They were not invited ; but 
I knew Mr. Free would only be too " 

There were many more surprises before Dr. Win- 
nington-Ingram and I had finished the circuit of the 
room ; but we will draw a veil over the amazement of it 
all. Suffice it to say that the sundry young ladies of 
sundry younggentlemencameon the strength of the tender 
relationship ; that two youths who could not produce a 
single scrap of an invitation between them declined to 
take the hint to retire, and remained in unabashed 
enjoyment of the proceedings during the whole evening ; 
and that an elderly unknown person of soiled appear- 
ance, who had snugly ensconced himself into a corner, 
was so tight — so tightly wedged, I mean — that he could 
not move on, although repeatedly requested to do so. 
Exceedingly unceremonious is your East-ender when 
you get him pure and simple. 

Yet even he has his little prejudices. In the matter 
of dress he is conventional to the point of thraldom. A 
girl, for instance, who should attempt to take her hair 
out of curling-pins until the afternoon would lay herself 
open to the suspicion of affectation. Also, in spite of the 
popular impression to the contrary, she will never, or 
hardly ever, adorn herself with feathers and flowers. 
Her hat, when she wears one, is neatness itself. Her 
skirt may be of scarlet and her bodice of blue ; she 
may slip in a green scarf here, for the sake of effect, and 
a yellow sash there, for mere brilliance ; but she is a 
perfect prude in the matter of hats. There is a Diana- 
like chasteness about her headgear which removes it 



VIRTUES 103 

altogether from the sphere of criticism. Again; in direct 
contradiction to general belief, corduroys would be con- 
sidered very bad form in the gilded youth of the East 
End, if the gilded youth of the East End at all affected 
them, which they don't. Should a young man attempt to 
wear corduroys he would lose caste. The young man 
in whom the wearing of corduroys had become a 
confirmed habit would be socially done for ; he would 
never be able to hold up his head again. 

Many people do not know these things. I used not 
to. But I had to learn them, whether I would or not. 
Let me tell my readers how. It was the morning of our 
annual excursion. The long line of brakes was on the 
move, and I was in the act of taking my place as per- 
sonal conductor, when a lad shouted out, " What about 
them corduroys and feathers, Mr. Free ? n I had no 
time to discuss the matter then ; but I gathered from the 
polite remarks that followed me as I drifted away in the 
wake of my Sunday School, that something disparaging 
to East-enders, of which I was supposed to be the author, 
had appeared in the morning paper. As soon as possible 
I secured a copy of the paper ; and there, sure enough, 
was the objectionable article — feathers, corduroys, and all. 
And the impression was abroad that I had written it ! 
I spent the day in gloomy foreboding. " An enemy 
hath done this," I said. It was not difficult to fix the 
lie on its forger. It would probably have been quite 
as easy to bring it home ; but I knew human nature 
too well to suppose that I should succeed in turning the 
current of indignation by preferring a charge against 
another. My forebodings were not without reason. For 
months I endured a daily martyrdom. To be seen in 
public was the signal for a universal outburst of indig- 



io 4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

nation. It became almost impossible for me to walk 
down the West Ferry Road. The words " feathers " and 
" corduroys " hurtled through the air ; groans and hisses 
greeted me from groups at street corners ; indignant 
letters appeared in the local papers ; and, lastly, filling 
the cup of my bitterness to overflowing, came a question 
from my Bishop — " People are writing to me about some 
article in a newspaper. What does it all mean ? " 
Your genuine East-ender is a stickler in the matter of 
dress. 

Dress excepted, however, he is the most unceremo- 
nious of human kind. Consequently, the snob cannot 
live in the East End. Now and again he tries to, but I 
have never known him to succeed. For a time neigh- 
bours may be tolerant, hoping for better things. But 
the inevitable is bound to come. The " gentleman," the 
" lady," the " doctor's widow," the " lord's grandnephew " 
— the snob assumes a dozen titles — suddenly disappears, 
generally in the middle of the night, followed by a united 
yell of execration from his numerous creditors. No ! 
The snob cannot thrive in the East End. For no true 
East-ender pretends to be what he is not, or claims any 
kind of distinction that he does not possess. 

Is it surprising that he is frankly contemptuous of 
the pomps and vanities of Church and State ? The Lord 
Mayor's Show does not rouse his enthusiasm ; nor a 
Royal procession. He is no more concerned with them 
than he is with a thanksgiving service at St. Paul's or 
a Church Congress. He reads sarcastic paragraphs 
about them in his Sunday newspaper, and he puts them 
all in his pipe, as it were, and smokes them. The great 
ones of earth are to him so many marionettes, who go 
through a series of clever, but stilted and unlifelike 



VIRTUES 105 

performances, and succeed in making sensible folk laugh 
immoderately. 

I have had to teach East End boys and girls " God 
save the Queen " with the same painstaking care that I 
have taught them " Praise God from whom all bless- 
ings flow." Even when learnt, neither the National 
Anthem nor the grand old Doxology has inspired them 
with any sense of reward for their trouble. My club 
lads used resolutely to refuse to take off their hats during 
the singing of the National Anthem ; and the crowded 
audiences invariably attracted by our entertainments 
would clear off as fast as their legs could carry them, the 
moment the announcement was made that we would 
close the proceedings in patriotic fashion. 

But the war changed all that. One evening, about a 
month after fighting began in South Africa, I was 
amazed to hear the " big drum " of our lads' brigade 
insisting that the whole company should doff their caps 
on his striking three thumping beats as a signal for 
" God save the Queen." " Hats off, please ! " cried the 
" big drum " ; and in a moment every head was bared, and 
a score of lusty young voices took up the familiar strain. 

Nowhere does the admirable independence of the 
East-ender's character show to greater advantage than 
in his superiority to physical pain. Sylvia cut her finger 
one day. It bled profusely. " How did you stop the 
bleeding ? " I asked, glancing compassionately at the 
wounded member. 

" Oh, dad soon settled that by clapping a teaspoonful 
of salt on it." 

" It hurt, eh?" 

The child paused. " Well," she said, with a little 
ripple of laughter, " it did make me 'op a bit." 



106 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Who ever heard of a factory girl acknowledging her- 
self to be ill ? She may be actually dying on her feet ; 
the pressure of her daily toil may have so told upon her 
as to have utterly undermined her health ; as the result 
of incessant labour under harmful conditions, her whole 
frame may be honeycombed with disease ; but you won't 
catch her complaining. Not she ! There's a many a great 
deal worse orf than wot she is — that's straight ! 

You meet a boy in the street with his eye bunged up 
by a mosquito bite. " Hullo, sonny ! Been in the 
wars ? " 

" Thet ain't nuffink ! You oughter to see Billy's 
mouf." 

" What ! " you say to a woman ; " got your fingers 
cut off in the machinery ? Poor, poor thing ! " 

" Lord ! " is the laughing reply, " wot's it matter ? 
It'll be all the same in a 'underd years." 

It smacks of fatalism, somewhat ; but, after all, that 
is the kind of stuff which, in the past, has made England 
what she is ; and that is the kind of heroism of which 
any country might well be proud. 

Nellie Winder got asbestos in her eyes ; her suffer- 
ings were terrible. She went up to one of the great 
London hospitals, and was kept in a draughty hall from 
half-past eleven to half-past six. There was a crowd of 
people waiting, for the most part old men, women, and 
little children ; and although it was in the depth of 
winter, and a bitter north-easter was blowing, not one of 
the officials who bustled to and fro all day long had the 
common-sense or common charity to close the windows. 
But Nellie did not complain. All she said, when narrat- 
ing the circumstance, was, " Good job I 'adn't to go ' in ' ! " 

Young Mathers contracted small-pox. When he was 



VIRTUES 107 

convalescent, I tried to get him to a home. To my 
astonishment, nobody would have him. All charitable 
avenues were rigidly closed against him. That was 
unfair ; it was even indecent. When all has been said 
that can be said about the need for the most scrupulous 
care, the fact remains that the small- pox convalescent is 
as dangerous as every other convalescent, no more and 
no less. It is unworthy of our common brotherhood 
that a peculiar stigma should attach to him. To debar 
him from the help of the benevolent, simply because his 
sickness has been of a particularly trying kind, is as 
illogical as it is inhuman. Mathers was obliged to return 
to his work without a holiday, with the result that it 
was many months before he recovered his strength. Yet 
he made no fuss. His only comment was, " I guess 
they're afraid o' we East End chaps." 

And he was about right. The fear of the East End 
by those who know nothing of it would be ludicrous 
were it not so sad. As a matter of fact, the West 
Ferry Road or the Commercial Road is far safer than 
Regent Street or Oxford Street ; and as for women, they 
are so rarely molested, or even rudely spoken to, that 
when such a thing occurs it causes quite a sensation. 
The East End has a bad name ; and a place, like a dog, 
w T ith a bad name is done for. " Can any good come out 
of Nazareth ? " 

But I have wandered from my point, which is that the 
East-ender is a hero of no mean type. He will uncom- 
plainingly endure ills that you and I would tragically 
call heaven and earth to witness. His whole life is so 
poor, so suffering, so limited, so grey, that one pain, one 
degradation, one misery, more or less, does not matter. 
" Well, I shall have to make the best of it," he says. 



io8 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

And thereby hangs the story of his life from the cradle 
to the grave. He makes the best of it. His motto 
would seem to be, " Enjoy life if you can, and while you 
can ; and if you can't, don't make a fuss about it." 

One winter evening I came across two lads sitting on a 
doorstep. The one was eating fried fish piping hot from the 
grill ; the other was smoking a cigarette. The cigarette- 
smoker was a very small boy ; and in the course of con- 
versation I ventured to suggest, humbly enough, I trust, 
that it might be well for him to wait a year or two 
before indulging in the habit. 

" Wot 'o ! " observed the elder boy, his mouth full. 
" 'E may be a dead 'un by that time. Smoke an' eat " — 
he crammed a huge lump of fish into his mouth — 
" smoke an' eat while you can, I sez." 



CHAPTER V 

LIMITATIONS 

MUCH of this book will be unintelligible unless the 
peculiar limitations of the East-ender's existence are 
carefully borne in mind. Millwallers, as I have said, 
are quite isolated from the rest of London, but hardly 
more so than are other parts of the East End. Nor, 
although the East End is fringed along its whole length 
by the Thames, is this isolation modified to any per- 
ceptible degree by the coming and going of seafaring 
men. It is amazing that more sailors are not turned 
out of this water-intersected land. One would imagine 
that to the growing lad, whose brain is a-teem with 
romance, the masts that rise everywhere like a winter 
forest, the great ships cautiously stealing down the 
river, the dry docks where battered hulks are patched 
and painted into smart craft, the music of winch and 
crane, of bell and siren, would fill him with hungry 
longing for the freedom and joy of a sailor's life. 
Nothing of the kind. The old salts he knows, who 
on rare occasions, over pipe and glass, crack of their 
sea-roving days, are shattered hulks indeed. For them 
there is no dry dock where they can be furbished up to 
look like new. They are just a commonplace lot of 



no SEVEN YEARS 7 HARD 

toiling men, worried, and tired, and failing in health, 
with no prospect but the sick asylum and a pauper's 
grave, when the once brawny muscles fail for good and 
all. Is it any wonder that the lad stops his ears to the 
charmer, turns his back on the sea, and becomes odd 
boy in a neighbouring yard at eight shillings a week ? 
Sailors are the only men in the East End who travel, 
and for all the good it does them, apart from the getting 
of the daily bread, they might as well follow the 
example of the yard-boy. Ask one of them to relate 
his experiences, and you will learn how little education 
for the uneducated there is in travel. Has he been to 
China ? Yes — but the Chinese is a rum lot. He knows 
India? A bit — and the Indians is a rum lot. Has he 
ever gone as far as New Zealand ? You bet ! — and the 
Maoris are a rum lot, if you like. 

East-enders are no travellers. Three months after 
Flossie Romer was married, her husband went to 
Canada, where he obtained an excellent situation. The 
days and weeks passed by, but Flossie made no effort 
to join him. I remonstrated, I urged, I almost threat- 
ened. All in vain. In the third year after the young 
man's departure, Flossie's mother assured me in a stage 
whisper that she very much feared that her daughter 
would never summon up courage to go ; for, she added, 
" Flossie is so frightened of the water that I can hardly 
get her to go to Gravesend ! " 

There are people in the East End who have not been 
five miles from London in their lives ; and the number of 
those, old and young alike, who have never seen London 
— I mean, as represented in its great national monu- 
ments : Westminster, the British Museum, the National 
Gallery, the Tomple, and so on — is legion. 



LIMITATIONS 1 1 1 

I once handed in a telegram at an East End office. 

" Hum ! the Temple ! " mused the telegraph girl. 
" That's in the country, isn't it ? " 

u Bless my heart ! No," I replied ; " it's in the 
very middle of London.'' 

" Lon — don ? " drawled the girl. " Oh — h ! Then I 
suppose the City Road will find it " ! 

I overheard a curious conversation one summer after- 
noon. Mrs. Beam was sitting on our drawing-room 
window-sill, a favourite resting-place for the weary, 
pouring into the sympathetic ears of a few bosom friends 
the appalling fact that she had to go, that very evening 
at seven, to meet her niece at Liverpool Street Station. 
How long it would take her to get there she really did 
not know ! She thought she'd just brush her hair, put 
on her bonnet, and start at once. 

At that moment my wife stepped into the street. 
11 You'll have to wait for hours if you go now," she 
said. " It's only three o'clock. If you'll tell me where 
your daughter is coming from, and at what time she 
leaves, I'll ascertain exactly when she is due to 
arrive." 

Mrs. Beam was confounded, and all the other women 
sniffed, except one, who said incredulously, " Lor' now ! 
can you do all that ? " 

II Oh, yes. We have a time-table, you know." 
u You don't say so!" said the incredulous woman. 

" And what might that be, now ? " 

" Obviously," said my wife, forgetting that to the 
East-ender nothing is necessarily obvious, " a book 
containing the times of trains, the times of the arrival 
and departure of every train in Great Britain." 

The incredulous woman screwed up her lips as if on 



ii2 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

the point of whistling, but, abandoning the idea, simply 
said, " Ah ! " 

" I'll go and fetch it," said my wife. As she re-entered 
the house, she overheard one of the women exclaim — 
" My Gawd ! How they do things, them people ! M 

By the very conditions of his life, the East-ender is 
denied the culture and discipline of travel ; and literature, 
that other great source of enlightenment, is a forbidden 
way to him because of his amazing lack of education 
and contentment therewith. Books stimulate thought, 
not emptiness. And the East-ender's mind is empty, 
not, indeed, because there is nothing to fill it, but 
because what there is cannot be got into it. Therefore 
bookshops, properly so-called, are almost unknown in 
the East End. Sir Walter Besant found in this part 
of the metropolis nothing but the Illustrated Police 
Budget. He was wrong, but not very far wrong. The 
Daily Mail is the only morning paper that has any sale 
to speak of; and the only evening paper that counts is 
the Evening News. Lloyd's and Reynolds' form the 
staple Sabbath diet of the Millwall working-man, while 
a lighter kind of refreshment is provided by the London 
Comic, which is hawked about on Sunday afternoons by 
a fellow with the croak of a raven. 

Once, in the days of my hardihood, I asked at an 
East End newspaper shop for the Westminster Gazette. 

" The what ? " politely inquired the old lady behind 
the counter. 

I repeated my request. 

" There's no sich paper," declared the old lady, with 
much assurance. 

" No such paper ! " I echoed, not without a touch of 
acerbity. " The Westminster Gazette has been in exist- 



LIMITATIONS 113 

ence for years, and is one of the leading papers of the 
da) 

4k Well, / never 'eard of it," the old lady declared 
aggressively. 

%k Why, where were you brought up ? " I said, with a 
feeble attempt at being funny. 

The old lady took the remark amiss. " 'Ere ! " she 
screamed, " 'Ere ! For thirty years I've lived 'ere, and 
it's the first time as / was ever asked for your West- 
minister Gazette T 

He does not hunger and thirst after knowledge, your 
East-ender. I used to be keen on getting him to read, 
supposing the thing could be done. So I bought a 
capital selection of books, and offered them at an 
absurdly low price, but I never succeeded in selling 
them. 

Travel and books are not popular in the East End. 
Were it possible to plump down at our very doors the 
finest library in the kingdom, it is doubtful if we should 
have either the energy or the ability to avail ourselves of 
the intellectual pabulum provided. Could free excur- 
sions on our behalf be organised to the four quarters of 
the globe, it is as certain as can be that the scheme 
would fail for lack of applicants. 

Let the reader try to imagine the condition of a 
people who neither read nor travel ; who know no- 
thing of the great tide of culture running at their very 
feet ; who are unaware of those heirlooms of theirs, the 
thoughts of their noblest fellow-countrymen ; who are 
oblivious of the very existence of the men of renown of 
other nationalities who, with their peers everywhere, 
are building up, stone by stone, the fabric of society ; 
and he will realise why these people are what they are. 

I 



1 1 4 SEVEN YEARS 1 HARD 

Who shall venture, in the face of such limitations, to be 
astonished at anything they may do or say ? And they 
do and say some very extraordinary things, of which I 
will give a few examples. 

It was Witson who, coming across a History of Hol- 
land, begged to be told in what language it was written. 

" German," said my wife. 

" No ! " objected Witson, pointing to the title. " That 
ain't German ; that's 'Olland." Which is a fair sample 
of the cocksureness of the average East End lad. 

Old Pete, after incredible pressure, went to the sick 
asylum. He was back in a month. 

" They discharged you ? " I asked, in surprise. 

" I discharged myself," said Old Pete. " There was a 
man nex' bed to me wot they killed orf." 

" Killed off? " 

" Yes. That's wot they do there. Everybody knows 
that. Drugs ! I know. Not me ! " He turned to his 
wife. "If you want to 'urry me up, send me to the 
infirm'ry, mate ; if you want me to live, keep me at 
'ome." 

It is no exaggeration to say that hundreds of East- 
enders die in utter wretchedness every year rather than 
go to the sick asylum. The prejudice is of many 
years' standing, and may be traced back, perhaps, to 
the barbarous days of the early part of the nineteenth 
century. 

I once preached on the subject of " Boy- Atheists." A 
day or two afterwards, one of my visitors was calling on 
Mrs. Grimes, in order to ascertain why her little girl 
had been absent from Sunday School on the previous 
Sunday. 

" Well, it's like this, miss," Mrs. Grimes explained ; 



LIMITATIONS 115 

41 I 'appened to tell my 'usband what Mr. Free was 
a-dom' " 

" How do you mean — what he was doing ? " 

M Why, that 'e 'ad been an' got a boy-atheist to preach 
in 'is church. My 'usban' says to me, 'e says, ' Take 
that child away from Free's, Sary Ann. D'ye 'ear? 
Take 'er away ! No atheists for me ! ' 'E was that 
angry, miss, an' swore that dreadful, that" — with a self- 
righteous sniff — " I took her away at once." 

I verily believe that not one-half of the people of 
Millwall have ever quite realised that St. Cuthbert's is 
a Christian church, or that it is connected in any sort of 
way with the Church of England. They regard it in 
the light of a " show " which I am running for my own 
profit. " Free's " is the name it generally goes by, and 
sometimes by designations which are even less polite. 

" Goin' to get 'im christened to-day ? " I overheard 
Mrs. Gallivan asking a neighbour whose voice I failed 
to recognise. 

" No. Sunday week." 

" That's right. Be good for once in your life ! 
Where ? Chapel ? " 

" Lord, no !. Old Dick's." 

It was difficult to persuade the members of our 
Window Gardening Society that plants of unprepossess- 
ing appearance possessed any value. Mrs. Worcester 
threw her begonia bulbs on to the top of a cupboard, 
under the impression that they were onions ; and Mrs. 
Twobear was so disgusted with the grubby look of her 
geraniums, that she tossed them into the dustbin. 
Another practical member boiled her tulip bulbs for her 
husband's dinner ; while the mingled joy and astonish- 
ment of Mrs. Skimper are worth preserving. " I sowed 



n6 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

them withered old things wot you sent me, and I'm 
blest if they didn't come up ! " 

All this, of course, is very excusable, when one 
reflects how few opportunities East-enders have of 
cultivating flowers ; but the lack of opportunity is sad 
to reflect upon. 

1 have already spoken of Cassandra. She was a fear- 
ful lump of a girl, very hoarse, exceedingly prone to 
religion and novelettes, and amorous to the bursting 
point. Strange things she said and did during her 
short reign. The order of the household astonished her 
mightily. That one should knock before entering a 
room, sound a gong to announce a meal, show visitors 
into the drawing-room instead of leaving them on the 
doorstep — these and a hundred other novelties filled her 
with amazement. Also, she loved a discovery. She 
made one on the occasion of the first and almost only 
formal call we ever had from a neighbour. My wife and I 
were out at the time. On our return, Cassandra burst 
into the room in a state of unwonted excitement, wildly 
flourishing a couple of visiting cards. 

" Look 'ere ! " she cried. " A gentleman come, and a 
lady come with him, and they both left their tickets!' 

A well-known public-house in the West Ferry Road 
is called the Lord Nelson, and a life-size figure of the 
hero, ensconced in a niche like a mediaeval saint, bears 
witness to the interesting fact. One March, this public- 
house was undergoing a spring-cleaning, and about the 
same time I was arranging with the venerable Earl 
Nelson to come and talk to my workers. 

" Ah !" observed Mrs. Standby, when she heard of the 
nobleman's visit, " that's very interestin'. It '11 be so 
gratifyin' for 'im to see his pub. nice and clean." 



LIMITATIONS 117 

In what manner could the East-ender's limitations be 

better exhibited than in his treatment of a stranger? 
I have already narrated my own experience, how the 
factory-girls would stand and yell at me. That, of 
itself, of course, is no proof of narrowness ; for we all 
know that to bait the parson whenever possible is quite 
the correct thing. But I have often been sadly divided 
between the longing to laugh and the obligation to weep 
at the badgering the well-dressed stranger would receive 
at the hands of his fellow-countrymen of the East End. 
Men and women alike would cheerfully criticise him, 
passing candid remarks on his personal appearance — his 
gait, dress, features, and then would fall into convulsions 
of merriment at their own wit. I have given the matter 
my careful consideration, and have come to the con- 
clusion that the well-dressed stranger acts upon the 
mind like a tonic. Work is not inspiriting in the East 
End ; frequently it is depressing. Under its influence 
one is apt to get down-hearted ; life seems colourless 
and empty ; when, lo, the well-dressed stranger, and joy 
unspeakable ! He is a denizen of another sphere. He 
brings with him some of the romance and mystery of 
the penny novelette and the fenilleton of the halfpenny 
newspaper ; and because the East-ender does not 
understand him, he laughs at him. What more natural ? 
The peculiarity, when one thinks of it, is not confined to 
the East End. 

Sometimes, when the East-ender has had his laugh 
out, he begins to exhibit mild curiosity. " But what 
have you come here for ? " I used to be frequently 
asked, at one time. And an assurance that I had come 
to try to be helpful met with polite but decided sceptic- 
ism. Slingsby, who was a server, asked me, " And what 



n8 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

was you afore you come 'ere ? A plumber ? " And 
Gravestone marvelled that I did not look out for " a 
better job." 

Miss Birtem, a lady worker, possessed a portable 
harmonium, with which she used to delight the factory- 
girls during their dinner hour. After examining the 
instrument, one of the most serious of her hearers asked 
her, " Now, what else do you do with it ? Do you play 
it round the pubs, of a hevening ? " 

As I have said, the East-ender is suspicious of the 
stranger. He is as certain as he can be that, in some 
mysterious way, unknown and unknowable, we are all 
making a good thing out of him. A lady gave me a 
guinea for my Boys' Club, and most unfortunately 
mentioned the fact to some of the lads. For weeks 
afterwards I could not step out of doors without being 
greeted with cries of " Wot about that sovereign wot 
Mrs. Greenaway give you ? Come on ! 'And it over ! " 
And it was not until Hal Cobbold had waited on me, 
and had received my personal explanation with many 
grunts of dissatisfaction and grins of doubt, that the 
matter was allowed to die a natural death. 

Nowhere are the limitations of the East-ender more 
aggressively obvious than in his language. By " lan- 
guage " I do not mean bad language. The East-ender 
can claim no monopoly of that ; although, to be quite 
fair, were a prize for bad language offered for competition, 
in all probability he would win it easily. In parentheses 
I should like to say that the man who habitually uses 
what we call bad language does not mean very much by 
it. There is, of course, the danger of minimising its 
significance. A friend once suggested to me that con- 
tinued contact with vile talk in the long run will blunt 



LIMITATIONS 119 

the finest sensibilities. It may be so. I will admit that 
language which shocked me when I came to the East End 
ceased to do so after the first year or so. Nevertheless, I 
am certain that the swearer or blasphemer, or even the 
person who delights in mere foulness of expression, means 
much less by it than we are apt to imagine. Besides 
which, the language of the East End, although bad, is, if 
one may trust Shakespeare, an improvement on that of 
the time of Elizabeth. Let the reader, whose over-sensi- 
tive ears are disturbed by expressions which fall all too 
easily from the lips of the East End working-man, read 
the common talk of Falstaff and his friends, from Prince 
to potboy. In comparison the working-man will seem a 
purist. 

Properly understood, the use of bad language is due 
to a desire to be forcible. To the East End enthusiast, 
the ordinary vehicles of thought become insufficient ; 
so he presses into service lurid, profane, even filthy 
words. In a similar quandary the West-ender refers to 
a nuisance, a shipwreck, or a bonnet as " awful " ; the 
East-ender speaks of a " bloody " nuisance, shipwreck, 
bonnet, and so on : yet the East-ender means no more 
than the West-ender. A Mayfair mother tells her child 
that if he doesn't stop crying she will whip him ; an 
East End mother warns her child that if he doesn't stop 
crying she will pulverise him, perform certain surgical 
operations upon him, and do such and such other things 
to him as may not be referred to even in the most round- 
about fashion. But the wife of the gentleman and the 
wife of the labourer mean the same thing, namely, an 
old-fashioned remedy for naughtiness whose efficacy will 
last while the world does. " God strike me blind ! " sang 
an entrancing little maiden of five whom I chanced upon, 



i2o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

in the West Ferry Road, gleefully dancing to the lilt of 
an impromptu melody. The child meant nothing by it. 
The phrase sounded musically to her. Somehow or 
other it fitted her mood ; that was all. And I cannot 
help thinking that East End men and women " swear n 
pretty much in the same innocent way as that child 
did. 

But it is the East End vernacular that I wish now to 
consider. It is a language of its own, simple and vigor- 
ous. Drawn from innumerable sources, high and low, 
classical and unclassical, levying contribution on the 
college-hall and the drawing-room no less than on the 
yard and the workshop, it yet retains its own character, 
its own particular flavour. And to those who use it the 
polite babblings of " society " sound inconceivably ridi- 
culous and affected. 

Decima's mother, now and again, used to do a day's 
charing for us. On these occasions, as it afterwards 
transpired, she was wont to improve herself by commit- 
ting to memory such new words and phrases as she 
chanced to hear. One day, in a burst of confidence, 
Decima made an announcement. " Camilla " — that was 
her sister — " laughs fit to bust 'erself at mother after 
she's been workin' in this 'ouse. Mother, she outs with 
such new-fangled, furrin talk ; and Camilla says, * Oh, I 
see you've been to the Frees' again.' " 

" Foreign talk ? " I repeated, thoroughly mystified. 

" You know," explained Decima. " Them crack-jaw 
words about a mile long, wot nobody knows the 
meanin' of." 

" Oh, I see," I said humbly, as the truth broke on me 
that our English was as foreign to them as theirs is to us. 

The East-ender's accent is not infrequently a source 



LIMITATIONS 121 

of mirth to the superior reader of the comic journal. 
Could the superior reader see himself as the East-ender 
sees him, his mirth would come to an untimely end. 
Our lads used to be openly contemptuous of my style 
of speech. One of their number was the notorious 
Sammy. The first time I ventured to address this 
young gentleman by name, he turned on me with 
the rebuke — " Sammy ! It's not Sammy ; its Seammy." 

Nina, as was to be expected, was keen on my educa- 
tion. She took me severely to task on one occasion for 
the manner in which I pronounced the word " Green- 
wich." In my blind way I had gone through life talk- 
ing of " Grinnidge." Nina informed me that this was 
wrong. 

" Oh, is it ? " I said, with my usual humility ; " how's 
that ? " 

" Well, it's quite simple," saidjNina ; " G, r, double-e, n 
spells green, don't it ? W, i, c, h spells wich, don't it ? 
Very well ! the whole w r ord spells Green-wich, not 
Grinnidge. See ? " 

And Nina smiled her ultra-superior smile. There 
was no gainsaying it — the smile, I mean. 

The East-ender suffers from complaints which nobody 
else ever heard of. Where among his fashionable 
patients would a West End physician find such diseases 
as, for instance, " chronitis," " acronitis," " instepsia," 
" purisy," " ammonia," " plumonia," " discussion of 
the brain," " typhite fever," " nervous ability," " con- 
fused shoulder," "wind that flies to the head," and 
" haricot veins " ? Incredible as it may seem, East- 
enders do suffer from these maladies — they have told 
me so. A woman in great distress, whose sick husband 
I had been hastily summoned to see, met me on the 



122 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

doorstep with — " Oh, he is bad, pore feller ! The doctor 
says he's got an enlarged progress in his inside." 

If there be, as there may be — we won't deny the 
possibility — some confusion somewhere, it is to be solely 
attributed to the malicious habit of words, which connote 
very different things, sounding alike. 

The mother of one of my boys was about to enter 
the estate of matrimony for the second time. " Yes, 
it's bin a bit lonely since Proggins died," she observed, 
reflectively ; " but things '11 be brighter now. It is so 
important to have a little symphony." 

" No ! I don't exactly object to the Psalms," Mrs. 
Pontiac has often declared to me ; " but I do love them 
Ancient and Moral Hymns." 

It was Seater, one of my first servers at the altar, who 
invariably referred to the purificator as the"puripitater," 
while his hopeless confusion between hassocks and 
cassocks was a terrible thing to hear. 

A born East-ender says " subsequently " for " conse- 
quently " ; he speaks of good things being " far and few 
between," of a person being " gifted " to drink ; of the 
Charity Ignatian Society, and of a " convalenty " home. 
Perhaps the reader may not be aware that a " fetchin' of 
beer" is a quantity such as one would ordinarily 
" fetch," namely, a pint or a quart ; that to drink it at a 
draught is to " mop it up " ; that \x\ order to pay for it, 
one must have at least a " doose " (twopence), possibly 
an " 'og " (a shilling), and sundry " fadges " (farthings) ; 
that rum is " Nelson's blood " ; that " gaffing " is gam- 
bling ; " lumping," pawning ; an " aiiter," a prize-fighter ; 
a " tiger," a flat-iron ; nor may it have occurred to him 
that the East End use of the adverb " being," for 
" seeing," is as old at least as Hooker. 



LIMITATIONS 123 

Why is it, I wonder, that East End matrons and 
maidens imagine their signatures to be imperfect unless 
prefixed by " Mrs." or "Miss"? Very rarely will a 
woman or girl sign her name without these " outward 
adornings." Forewarned is forearmed ; therefore, when 
I want a signature, I stipulate, " Simple Christian and 
surname, please." So with letters. More often than 
not, a confidential, not to say affectionate, epistle will 
conclude — oh, so coldly ! — with, " Yours truly, Mrs. 
Jones ! " Men rarely fall into the muddle ; but once in 
my experience an excited bridegroom distinguished 
himself thus. For an unfortunate moment my atten- 
tion was arrested ; and when I turned, there it was, sure 
enough, in the marriage register — " Mr. Tom Smith." 

Talking of names, it is quite a common thing for 
dock-labourers to have several names. I was once 
neatly taken in by young Patty O'Gorman, whom I had 
refused to recommend for a much-desired job. Patty 
assumed one of his many aliases^ obtained a recommen- 
dation of a most flattering kind from a man who, I fear, 
knew little or nothing of him, palmed himself off on me 
as Silas Quorl, and got the situation. I had no 
redress, because he insisted that Silas Quorl was his real 
name. 

In this connection, a curious custom obtains among 
East-enders, namely, that of discarding one's own name 
and taking on that of one's mother by a second 
marriage. A young fellow came to me about a situation. 

" Your name ? " I asked. 

" Charles Brown," he answered promptly. 

I wrote it down. 

" Address ? Age ? " I was continuing, when he inter- 
rupted — 



i2 4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" Of course, Charles Brown ain't my real name." 

" Oh ! " I exclaimed, pen poised in air. " But it's 
your real name I want, my lad." 

" My real name is Robinson." 

" Why did you say Brown ? " I asked, writing Robinson 
over the cancelled word. 

" Of course," he replied, with an indulgent grin at my 
infirmity of intellect, " my real name is Robinson ; but 
my right and proper name is Brown." 

I put down my pen in dismay ; and it was only after 
ten minutes' diligent sifting that I discovered that his 
mother had married twice, the name of her first husband 
being Brown, and that of her second Robinson. 

For a woman to retain the name of her first husband 
during the whole of her married life with a second is so 
common a circumstance as to excite no remark ; and if 
one is ever so indiscreet as to express surprise at such a 
thing, one is invariably met with some such explanation 
as this : " Oh, well ! people don't know me by my 
new name — it's strange to 'em, you see ; so I keeps to 
the old one as being more convenient.'* 

And here I am reminded that nowhere are the East- 
ender's limitations more pronounced than in the rela- 
tions of the sexes. The opportunities children have of 
striking up an acquaintance are unlimited. There are 
no preliminaries to be arranged, no conventions to be 
observed. Before they are out of their 'teens, a boy or 
girl may have had a dozen such flirtations. 

" I'll be at the fire-station to night at eight. Come? " 
says the boy, not without shyness. 

" You ain't got a cheek, you ain't ! Anythink else in a 
small way ? " answers the girl, with a gasp and a giggle. 

But she goes all the same. It may be the first bit of 



LIMITATIONS 125 

sweethearting she has ever engaged in ; it will certainly 
not bo the last The probability is that the two will get 

tired of one another in a month, in which case fresh 
alliances will be entered into on both sides with bewilder- 
ing rapidity. 

You smile approval on what looks like a promising 
match. " A likely couple," you say to yourself, as you 
see them walking down the road six feet apart. 
" Where's Alfred ? " you ask, a week later, on meeting 
the girl. 

" Oh ! Alf s orf. It's Jim Johnson now," she answers 
with undisguised satisfaction. 

These things arrange and rearrange themselves very 
early in the East-ender's life ; for, among the workers 
there is a premature development of both sexes 
unknown to the upper and middle classes. One's 
thoughts involuntarily turn to the south, where girls are 
women and boys are men at thirteen. 

Tillie B.'s lovers — we always call her Tillie B. ; I 
don't quite know why — were many and varied. She 
rarely kept one on for longer than a fortnight. It 
has been my privilege to secure the following letter, 
which I dutifully pass on to the reader : — 

Miss Bagin, 

I have become friends again with an old 
sweetheart I used to go with, and I am going with her 
again. So our friendship must cease. 

I am, 

Yours faithfully, 

ROBERT STOKER. 



126 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

The answer to this formal epistle was extremely 
characteristic : — 

Dear Bob, 

Cheer up ! You'll soon be dead. 

Yours ever, 

TILLIE. 

One day I came suddenly upon Tillie and young 
Beetroot standing in somewhat close proximity in 
the entrance passage of our house. Something in their 
looks gave me pause. 

" Why, what ? " I began, turning from one to 

the other. Beetroot hung his head sheepishly, but 
Tillie recovered herself in a moment. 

" You see," she explained, with her demurest smile, 
" George and me is ingaged." 

Within three weeks Tillie had taken to herself 
another sweetheart, to wit, Bertie Drayman, a boy w 7 ho 
might have posed for Alphonse Daudet's Petit CJwse. 
I remonstrated with Tillie on her inconstancy. As 
usual, she was equal to the occasion. 

" We got tired of one another, George and me," she 
said, with a reminiscent sigh, " and we both thought a 
change advisable. Then Bertie come along, and wanted 
me to keep company with him." 

" Keep company ? " I echoed, aghast 

" Walk out with him, you know," interpreted Tillie, 
misinterpreting my astonishment. 

" And what did you say ? " I inquired. 

" Said I'd ask father." 

" And father ? " 

" Well, father said he thought we was too young to 
keep company, so now we only see each other." 



LIMITATIONS 



127 



It is refreshing to find a touch of the celestial \n a 
place so mundane as the East End. There many good 
folk neither marry nor are given in marriage, although, 
to be quite truthful, they are not on that account " as 
the angels." Marriage is too civilised for such persons. 
Being primitive, they adopt primitive methods. M So 
many as are coupled together otherwise than God's 
Word doth allow are not joined together by God, neither 
is their matrimony lawful," says the Prayer Book. But 
such people know nothing of the Prayer Book, and merely 
follow their natural instincts. Only those who live in 
the East End can form any conception of the preva- 
lence of such irregular unions. There is not of necessity 
an absence of order and decency in these relationships. 
Couples one has known and respected for years, men 
and women who have brought up large families in a 
manner that defies criticism, will be discovered, mostly 
by accident, to be lacking the legal bond. Sometimes 
there is a real impediment to lawful union ; more often 
there is none. The relationship has been drifted into, 
has been found mutually agreeable, and has become 
fixed by habit. Very rarely, at the eleventh hour, the 
man deserts the woman ; still more rarely, the woman 
the man. But, for the most part, where the union has 
survived the first outburst of animalism, the contract- 
ing parties remain as faithful to one another as those 
married by Church or State. For the most part, neither 
father nor mother is troubled by qualms of conscience. 
Whatever suffering arises from the irregular union is 
borne by the child. Never shall I forget young Penny's 
despair when he discovered that he was branded with 
shame which no effort of his could ever wipe out. The 
young man was stunned. He looked from one to the 



128 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

other in dumb amazement. Then his eyes fell upon the 
mother whom he had learned to love, and, turning 
away, he burst into tears. 

It would be wise, maybe, to stop here in the con- 
sideration of an unpleasant subject ; but the reader, I 
hope, will pardon me for citing two cases which are 
typical of very many in the East End. 

Martha, a delicate-looking girl, was once respectably 
married ; but that was not enough for her. She must 
needs leave her husband, and force herself on a previous 
lover. Her paramour treats her with the utmost 
brutality, frequently turning her into the street and 
compelling her to wander about the livelong night. He 
beats her unmercifully on the slightest pretext, and 
never allows her to forget what she is. Yet she clings 
to him, defends him from the sharp tongue-thrusts of 
neighbours, and goes on bearing him children, one and 
all of whom are tainted with the consumption from 
which she herself suffers. How long, one wonders, will 
a Christian State permit such degradation within its 
borders ? 

The second instance is that of Cora. By sixteen this 
girl had sunk to the lowest depth of infamy— she was 
the mistress of her own father. Repeated efforts were 
made to save her. Many a walk and talk have I had 
with her. How I have pleaded with her ! She would 
kneel with me in prayer in my study. She would 
solemnly promise to lead a new life, and for a time 
would keep her oath, and stand firm and fast in the mad 
black rush of temptation. But the whirlpool always 
sucked her down again ; and now, in the midst of the 
riot of waters, she draws daily nearer to the end. 

One turns with relief to the normal married life of the 



LIMITATIONS 129 

East-ender ; but even here there is no lack of the grue- 
some. Marriage brings to the East End girl a host of 
troubles. Her children are naturally her first thought. 
She will starve herself to get them food ; and so she is 
often compelled to take a turn at the factory, which 
exhausts her strength, and in the long run is detrimental 
to her children. Nor is it exclusively the wife of the 
sluggard or the drunkard who is obliged to go to work. 
At times the steadiest and most industrious men are 
unable to keep things going without the assistance of 
the u missus." What with high rents, large families, 
and the price of food, there is nothing but starvation for 
many an East End working-man's family if his own 
wages are solely relied upon. The few extra shillings 
brought in by the wife make all the difference. 

Then the married woman in the East End is a slave 
to her husband as long as he lives. Should he un- 
happily, or happily, die, she transfers her vassalage to 
her eldest son. The boy may be but eighteen, sixteen, 
fourteen ; but, insolent and selfish beyond belief, he will 
not even stop short of turning his mother out of doors. 
I have known a lad actually order his widowed mother 
to bed ; and she would meekly obey, in order to escape 
his violence. 

Yet it would not be correct to say that the East End 
woman's married life is particularly unhappy. On the 
whole, one is inclined to think that it is as happy as that 
of her sister in the West. It must not be forgotten, of 
course, that the East End is a century behind the times. 
Nowhere else would a woman esteem herself happily 
married if her husband was in the habit of blacking her 
eyes or breaking her nose ; yet such trifling incidents in 
nowise seriously interfere with the matrimonial bliss of 

K 



130 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

East End women. Indeed, wife-beating is such a recog- 
nised institution, that a husband would lose caste should 
he so far forget his marital privileges as to be a total 
abstainer in this respect. 

" Wot's up, Bella ? " solicitously inquired a young 
woman, in my hearing, of a friend whose appearance 
indicated that she had been in the wars. 

" Oh, nothink ! On'y my mate chastised me last 
night ; so I've got to go about with a couple o' coloured 
eyes." 

" Does your father ever wallop you ? " Lizzie Hagger- 
ston was asked by a small girl friend. 

" Not 'arf ! I might as well be his wife ! " was Lizzie's 
answer. 

East End lads have been known to " chastise " their 
girls before marriage. 

Sometimes, however, the mare is the better horse, in 
which case I am uncertain whether the condition of the 
" henpecked " husband is not more pitiable than that of 
the " chastised " wife. 

"Why has Mrs. Templar taken to drink?" I once 
inquired of that lady's friend. 

" Well, she's got a lot to put up with ; and when I tell 
you as 'ow 'er 'usband openly defies 'er, you'll under- 
stand." 

Flappery, whose devotion to his tippling wife I have 
already described, had a wretched time of it. He was 
one of the henpecked ones. His wife's moral weakness 
made her incredibly selfish. She would eat and drink 
her fill in his presence, without permitting him a bite or 
a sup of the good things she had reserved for herself. 
Now and again he would meekly try to filch a slice of 
meat to match his bread ; but if she caught him at it, 



LIMITATIONS 131 

woe betide him ! Nevertheless the poor wretch was 
only too happy to lick the hand that tortured him ; 
and when his wife was struck down with a loathsome 
disease, his love for her was very wonderful, passing the 
love of women. But the long years of silent suffering 
had broken his heart ; and it was a pitiful wreck of a 
man that I induced, after much trouble, to leave his 
dying wife, and enter the cab which was to convey him 
to the lunatic asylum. 

The death of young Cartwright, recorded elsewhere, 
was the occasion of a curious revelation concerning 
matters matrimonial. Old Mrs. Crusty was only five 
years younger than her husband, but from the airs 
she gave herself she might have been fifty. 

" Tiresome old man ! " she would say, " I can't be 
bothered with him. 'E's so much older than me." 

" You shouldn't talk like that," Miss Grales would 
remonstrate. " Remember that you married him of 
your own free will." 

" I wouldn't if I'd knowed all. Why, I never dreamt 
as 'e would last so long." 

Now, when Mrs. Crusty heard of Cartwright's death 
she began to lament with exceeding bitterness. 

M Pore feller ! Taken in the flower of his young age, 
as you may say. An' to think o' mine ! Eighty next 
birthday, an' as well an' 'earty as many a kid ain't. 
Look at 'im ! 'E's spared ; while — while " 

But Mrs. Crusty's emotion choked further utterance. 



K 2 



CHAPTER VI 

RECREATIONS 

FUNERALS and fights are the chief recreations of the 
East-ender. The news of a funeral flies like the wind. 
Crowds surge to the chief points of vantage ; necks are 
craned and cracked with eagerness ; the most strident 
voices are hushed to melodramatic whispers. Appears 
the solemn cortege^ very orthodox, very black, very ex- 
pensive, and very foolish. The deceased most likely 
was a man of humble position — a dock-labourer, a fac- 
tory-hand or what not. No matter ! He must have the 
finest funeral that money can buy. Wasn't his life 
insured ? 

During his last illness I attended young Shippenoy, 
providing him with invalid dainties because his parents 
could not afford them. The poor boy lingered for 
several weeks, and at last died. I shall never forget the 
funeral of that sixteen-year-old lad. Four black coaches 
crammed with black mourners, each armed with a crisp, 
new, black-bordered handkerchief; eight black horses 
with sweeping black tails, accompanied by attendants in 
shiny black broadcloth ; a magnificent black hearse, 
bearing, amid many flowers, the coffin ; most impressive 
of all, four gentlemen, very solemn, very black indeed, 



RECREATIONS 133 

who rode grandly behind each of the four black 
coaches ! 

Next day came a note from the lad's mother, begging 
a ticket for " a bit of coal, or even a little grocery," as 
" there was nothing whatever in the house." Very im- 
pressive indeed ! 

Funerals are a terrible tax on the poor. Yet if one 
ventures to remonstrate ever so mildly, one is told that 
" It's little enough we can do for 'em, pore things ; and 
if we can't show respect for the dead and gone by spend- 
in' a bit o' money on 'em, well, it's precious hard lines, 
that's all ! " It was Hayston who took his wife an ex- 
pensive journey into the country, because, had he buried 
her at the East London Cemetery, there would have 
been a balance on her life insurance ; and she was going 
to have every farthing of it, she was, if he knew what 
was what ! Something of fine feeling is in this, but 
more of the blind worship of fashion. There is not a 
mother's son of them all who is not keenly alive to the 
fact that, were he to adopt a style of obsequies suit- 
able to his position, he would be looked down upon by 
every right-hearted and wrong-headed neighbour. The 
conventionality of the East-ender in the matter of 
funerals is paralysing. Even babies, whose lives, un- 
happily, are held all too cheaply, must go to their long 
home with infinite pomp and circumstance. 

" I thought as you'd like to see 'er," said Mrs. Field, 
as she drew down the white cloth and uncovered the 
shrunken little face of her last-born. 

I did not speak for a long time. Speech seems so use- 
less in the presence of death. But at last I murmured 
words of comfort : God was good ; He knew best ; we 
must resign ourselves. The woman broke in rudely 



134 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

on my commonplaces. " It ain't so much the loss of 
'er ; it's the cawst of 'er berrial,' , she said, irritably. 

That was a terrible admission, when you think of it. 
Put in plain English, it meant that the mother thought 
more of making a show of her dead child than a joy of 
her living one. East End funerals are good for the 
undertake^ bad for everybody else. For his own ends 
the undertaker fosters the love of grandeur, going to the 
length of publicly parading his black cavalcade in order 
to excite the jaded appetites of bereaved ones. — " Wot 
a lovely sight ! And only ten pounds ! " But the loss to 
the poor, both material and moral, is quite incalculable. 
Money thus squandered could be used to so much 
better advantage ; and competition of the kind engen- 
ders vulgarity, pride, deceit, and deep irreverence. 

At bottom of it all, of course, lies the half-terrified 
curiosity about death — I had almost said the morbid 
love of it. Nor do I think I should be far wrong if I 
allowed myself the expression. For morbid the East- 
ender's view of death undoubtedly is. " Come and see 
'Liza in her cawfin ! " was the challenge passed from 
mouth to mouth by the little girls who had been 'Liza's 
playmates. And I find that to go and see 'Liza, or 
Tommy, or Mrs. Smith, or Mrs. Jones, in his or her 
"cawfin" is one of the keenest joys of old and young. 
You call on a neighbour to express your sympathy with 
the widow and the fatherless ; and, no matter what the 
deceased died of, you are sure to be greeted with — 
" You'd like to see him, wouldn't you ? He looks bew- 
tiful." 

Death was the subject of the very first conversation I 
had with Tiny. At that time she was tiny indeed, and 
very torn and tattered at that. Her hair was always in 



RECREATIONS 135 

wild disorder ; her stockings never, by any chance, 
cow red her legs. The efforts she used to make to 
induce those stockings of hers to keep up for ten con- 
secutive seconds were beyond all praise, even as they 
were beyond all belief. She would tie them with odd 
bits of string anyone would lend her ; she would lunge at 
them as she ran, first one, then the other ; she would hold 
them up with both hands, and at such times her whirling 
progress through space was a sight for gods and men. 
But they always came slithering down again ; and after 
the twentieth attempt to fix them, she would abandon 
the things in despair, and go about naked and unashamed. 

On the day in question, Tiny came racing after me in 
her usual fashion ; and I knew by her breathless efforts to 
get alongside that she bore important news. In one 
hand she clutched a great hunk of bread and jam, which 
she nibbled at as she ran ; with the other she grabbed at 
her stockings. With a final spurt she was at my side. 

" Lit' — girl — there ! " she gasped, half-choked with jam 
and breathlessness, as she pointed down one of our 
riverside streets. 

I walked on. 

" Sich a nice little girl," pursued Tiny, recovering her 
breath, swallowing the remainder of the bread and jam, 
and just saving her right-leg stocking. 

But I was deep in meditation, w T ondering, as a matter 
of fact, what I should do about Cora, whose shameful 
life I have referred to in the last chapter ; and, although 
Tiny's little jammy fist was now in mine, my thoughts 
were far away. 

" Sich a nice little girl," repeated the child, not without 
reproach. 

I said I was so glad she was nice ; and off went my 



136 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

thoughts again after the wandering sheep. Presently I 
felt a tug at my coat. " Well ? " I looked down at the 
child, and discovered to my surprise that her eyes were 
filled with awe and wonder. 

" I seed her. She was wite — wite as a ghost," said 
she in a stage whisper. 

By this time I had reached the house where Cora 
lived. I knocked and was admitted. Just as I was 
closing the door behind me, I felt an obstruction, and, 
looking down, discovered Tiny's foot. 

" Mitter Fee ! " she whispered. 

"Well, what is it?" I asked, with growing impatience. 

" Sich a nice little girl," observed Tiny, going through 
a sort of dumb show, and letting the refractory stockings 
slide right down into her loosely-laced boots. " Boo- 
tiful nice little girl ! " 

" Yes, my dear, so you told me," said I, endeavouring 
to close the door, and again finding the obstructing foot. 
" Now, look here ! " — I was really getting angry. 

" Mitter Fee ! " 

"Well, well! what is it?" 

" Nice little girl — doo-tiful nice." Tiny fitted the fingers 
of one hand on to those of the other, slowly parted them, 
gradually extended the space between them to her two 
arms' length, and said, with a shivering motion of her 
whole body that was intensely dramatic — " Oh, she is 
stretched out so long. Dead ! " 

This interest of Tiny's in death is typical of the attitude 
of all East-enders. Death appeals to them in a way 
perfectly incomprehensible to other people. The fascina- 
tion of it is, as I said, morbid ; it is also infectious. 
When Cappercorn, the Victoria Park preacher, met 
his death in a railway accident, a certain section of 



RECREATIONS 137 

the population went crazy. People who had never in 
their lives spoken to the good man made his funeral an 
occasion of bacchanalian revelry. On the return from 
the cemetery, a woman and a child were killed and 
several persons were injured, Mrs. Grand attempted to 
poison herself, and Nancy tried to jump into the dock 
with her baby in her arms. 

So morbid is the love of death, that occasionally one 
finds the East-ender anticipating it in the most extra- 
ordinary fashion. One Sunday morning, Little Billee, 
as I used to call him, arrived in the choir-vestry magni- 
ficently attired in black — black boots, black trousers, 
black waistcoat, black jacket, black tie, black hat. 

"Hullo! here's a swell!" I exclaimed, irreverently. 
Then, suddenly impressed by Little Billee's funereal 
appearance, I added, " I hope you're not in mourning 
for anyone." 

The boy hung his head. " Not yet" he murmured. 

I was so dumbfounded that I could ask no more 
questions then ; but I ascertained the facts from a sister 
on the following day. " Well," she explained, " it's like 
this : as the doctors give mother up, and Billy's been 
wanting a new suit for a long time, father thought as 
'ow it would save money like if — see ? " 

I did see, bade the girl a hurried adieu, and tumbled 
into the fresh air. 

Did the reader ever hear of a clergyman paying a 
formal visit to a corpse ? I have done that. Two days 
after the incident just related, I was hastily summoned 
by Little Billee's sister to " see mother." I hurried to 
the house, expecting to find the poor woman in articulo 
mortis. " How is she ? " I inquired, as well as want of 
breath would permit. 



138 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" Gone ! " answered the daughter, shaking her head. 

" Dead ! " interpreted the husband and Little Billee 
together. 

" Poor thing ! " I exclaimed. " So she has passed 
away since you came for me ? " 

" Oh, no ! Not at all ! " was the answer. " She was 
dead then, but we thought as how you'd like to see her 
all the same." 

There must have been something weird about this 
family; for it was Little Billee who begged off from 
choir-practice "to go and see grandmother." 

" Is your grandmother ill ? " I inquired, solicitously. 

" She's dead," said Little Billee. 

Perhaps enough has been said to convince the most 
sceptical reader that I am in no way using the language 
of hyperbole in saying that funerals are one of the 
chief recreations of the East-ender, He revels — no 
other word is adequate — he simply revels in death. 

And second only to his love of death is his love of fight- 
ing. Fighting of a kind is bred in his bone and marrow. In 
my early days in the East End, it was not unusual for 
a free fight to take place in the midst of the solemnities 
of Sunday School ; and I have a vivid recollection of 
two young ragamuffins rolling over and over in what 
appeared to be a life-and-death struggle on the very 
steps of the altar. If the child does not grow up to be 
a fighter, the fault certainly does not lie with the parents. 
It is no uncommon thing for a boy to be beaten because 
he has not the pluck to retaliate. I have often heard 
a mother say to her little son, whom a schoolfellow had 
thumped all too vigorously : " You 'it 'im back, d' you 
'ear ? or I'll tell your father of you, my boy ! " or, "If you 
don't give him one in the jaw, I'll pay you — now then ! " 



RECREATIONS 139 

East End children are taught to be fighters, but 
fighters of a kind. One suffocating day in midsummer, 
two little girls were carrying on a confidential conversa- 
tion just below my study window. " We give your 
Johnny a good 'idin' when he come out o' school this 
mornm', we did," observed the first little girl. 

" Garn ! " objected the second ; then, with contempt 
born of conviction, " you couldrit" 

" Yes, we could ; and we did, too." 

" Not you ! " retorted the second little girl, with a 
brave show of assurance ; then, her curiosity over- 
mastering her, " Well, 'ow did you, then ? " 

" We chucked bricks at 'im," said the first little girl, 
triumphantly. 

The fighting instinct is strong in the East-ender ; the 
sporting instinct, weak. He " chucks bricks." Cruelty 
to animals was very common when I first came to the 
East End. The appearance of a dog would be the signal 
for a volley of hard words and harder stones. Many a 
terrified cat could be seen in those days madly careering 
down the street with a tin can tied to its tail. Com- 
plaints used to reach me of ducks and hens done to 
death in cold blood. Despite the fact that every male 
East-ender is a footballer born, the average man or boy, 
in a hand-to-hand conflict off the field, has no idea of 
confining his attention to that part of his adversary 
above the belt. I mean that while he adores horseplay, 
he does not bother about fairplay. Several instances of 
this moral perversity occur to me. 

It was the night of our return from one of our 
Sunday School excursions. The long line of brakes 
had just drawn up ; the cornets were still blaring " For 
Auld Lang Syne " ; the fireworks were hissing and 



i 4 o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

spitting ; and the street was ablaze with crimson and 
green. As I was shaking hands with this one and that, 
I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. Wheeling round, I 
found myself face to face with a number of young 
fellows, whom I at once perceived to be on mischief 
bent. One gets used to surprises in the East End ; and 
so, with a smile, I began chatting to them in an ordinary 
manner, and, after a few minutes' conversation, bade 
them good-night. I was turning away when there came 
another tap on my shoulder. I looked round, quietly 
remonstrated, and walked on. Tip-tap, tip-tap, came 
sundry little strokes in rapid succession. I had had a 
fatiguing day ; I was dead-beat ; and I suddenly lost 
my temper. Swinging up my right arm and whirling 
on my heel, I struck out at chance, and narrowly missed 
a lanky lad with a pasty face. 

" Was it you ? " I cried, in considerable wrath. 

" Not me. I never touched you," answered the pasty- 
faced one. 

" You, then ? -■ I said, turning to a red-haired fellow 
of twenty-five or so. 

" Never lifted a finger," he assured me. 

My temper got the better of me. " Then who was it? 
If the coward who struck me behind my back will have 
the manliness to do the same to my face, I shall have 
the greatest pleasure in life in knocking him down ! " 

Not a fellow stirred, but a queer look crept from one 

to another. "And the Lord said unto Moses " 

chuckled a voice in the crowd. 

Another example of what I mean. One afternoon I 
fell in with a couple of men fighting in a by-street. 
One warrior was all but dead-drunk ; the other was as 
sober as I was myself. As I came up, the drunken man 



RECREATIONS 141 

swayed under the onset of his opponent, and crashed to 
the pavement. He was bleeding and bruised ; he was 
dazed with drink and the shock of the fall. But half- 
a-dozen men ran in, set him on his feet, clapped him on 
the back, and urged him to go at it again. Cowed as he 
was, he would not show the white feather. With an 
oath he swayed forward to the unequal contest. I 
thought it time to interfere. " You're not fit to fight. 
Come away ! Wait until you are sober," I said. 

11 What the hell is it to do with you ? " objected one of 
the crowd. " You mind your own business." 

" It isn't sport, friends," I said, " and you know it. 
You've no right to pit a poor drunken chap like that 
against a man who hasn't got a drop of drink in him. 
. . . You go home, my boy, and sleep it off." 

The backer of the sober man, who was himself more 
than half-seas over, came up and began to argue. I 
placed my hand on his shoulder and said, " I'm sober ; 
you're not. Would you call it sport if I treated you 
like this ? " With a smart shove I sent him flying, but 
caught him before he had time to measure his length. 
The argument seemed to convince him. 

This lack of courage takes some curious forms. For 
instance, when an East-ender wishes to avenge himself 
for an injury, he does so indirectly. If you are so 
unhappy as to offend him, he immediately proceeds to 
talk at you through the medium of an accommodating 
neighbour ; or he ensconces himself in the midst of his 
pals and freely expresses his opinion of you ; or he lies 
low indoors and shouts rude remarks at you as you pass 
by. The obvious advantage of this method is that 
everybody is at once acquainted with the matter in 
dispute, and is prepared to deliver judgment upon it. 



i 4 2 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Similarly, lads have no notion of preferring their 
requests in a direct manner. Say they want you to 
start a football club. Do they ask you to ? Not a bit of 
it ! The first intimation you receive that something is 
amiss is their particularly riotous behaviour. If you are 
new to the work, you commit the indiscretion of turning 
out the ringleaders and making lifelong enemies ; but 
if you know the East End lad, you meditate : " Now, I 
wonder what they want ? " You guess — to yourself ; and 
when you have satisfied yourself that you have guessed 
aright, you say in your most ingenuous manner : " Ah, 
by-the-way, I think it would be a capital idea to start a 
football team this winter. What do you say ? " 

A fight between women will draw even a larger crowd 
than one between men ; for it is a far more savage 
business. Nails are used instead of fists ; hysterical 
shrieks are uttered in place of modified and rather 
dignified grunts. There is less force about it, but more 
cunning ; less bruising, but more blood. I have seen a 
woman score another's face from brow to chin with her 
ten fingers ; and I have seen another tear handfuls of 
hair from her opponent's head. To add to the horror of 
a fight between women, the language is superlative. 

But perhaps the worst kind of fight is between a man 
and a woman. That is so shameful, so unnatural, so 
ferociously cruel, that it beggars description. Never- 
theless, such a fight is best left alone. Benevolent 
interference merely aggravates matters. The woman 
invariably sides with the man, even though he has been 
using her shockingly, and pours her vials of wrath upon 
the head of her would-be defender. A typical instance 
occurs to me. 

About two o'clock, one Sunday morning, that amiable 



RECREATIONS 143 

couple, Carmen and her husband, were engaged in 
a domestic difference just outside our house. The 
noise of it kept us all awake ; otherwise it was quite 
tolerable for half an hour or so. But when the man 
began banging the woman's head, and in the midst of 
her piercing shrieks we could hear, all too plainly, the 
thud, thud of her poor skull in contact with Mother 
Earth, my wife could contain herself no longer. Fling- 
ing up the window, she delivered herself unreservedly 
on the subject of the gentleman's ungentlemanly 
behaviour. The man paused in the operation of 
murdering his better-half, and stared stupidly in the 
direction of the terrible voice ; but the woman sprang 
to her feet and, coming close under the window, poured 
forth such a volley of abuse as I have rarely heard 
equalled. Working herself into a fury, she ventured to 
question our adherence to the sixth, seventh, eighth, and 
ninth commandments ; insisted on our blood relation- 
ship to cats, cows, swine, and other doubtful animals ; 
and concluded with the following unanswerable 
challenge : " Can't my 'usband do bloody well what he 
likes with his own ? " 

Calling on Mrs. Dackrush one day, I found her just 
returned from a holiday. " Been down to my old 'ome," 
she explained, smilingly. The freshness of the country 
seemed to cling to her ; she apparently had not had the 
courage to doff her smart Sunday attire. I had never 
seen Mrs. Dackrush look better than she did that after- 
noon. I felt quite proud of her as one of the earliest 
members of my Guild of Kindness. I thought to 
myself, " Now here's a nice little proof of my constant 
contention that these people accept their sordid lives 
only under the compulsion of grim necessity. The 



i 4 4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

moment they free themselves from their environment, 
they become new creatures.'* The meditation was 
excusable ; for, indeed, Mrs. Dackrush did look " quite 
the lady," as a friendly neighbour put it. 

" I'm glad that you've been to your childhood's 
haunts," I said, grandiloquently. " And what did you do 
with yourself, now ? " 

"Well, I'll tell you," said Mrs. Dackrush, her face 
radiant. " The very fust thing as I does when I gets 
down to my old 'ome is to give that old sneak a good 
'idin'." 

" What old sneak ? " I asked, aghast. 

"Haven't I never telled you about Mrs. Gammin? Her 
what sneaked about me when I was a little 'un, and got 
me a birchin' ? I sweared then that when I was growed 
up I'd be even with 'er. So every time I goes down to 
my old 'ome the fust thing I does is to go to 'er cottage 
and give her a jolly good 'idin'." 

It was a minute before I could get speech. " But she 
must be an old, old woman by now? " 

" That she is, as old as they make 'em ; but her age 
don't make no difference to me. She's got to have her 
'idin' all the same, and she knows it." 

" And how old might she be ? " I asked, feeling that I 
was dreaming. 

" Seventy-six come Michaelmas. It's just thirty-five 
year since she played me that dirty trick ; but I ain't 
the one to forget a thing like that." 

" But," I began, still dazed and incredulous, " do I 
understand you to say ? " 

"You understand me to say, Mr. Free, that I gives 
Mrs. Gammin a thrashin' every time I goes to my old 
ome. 



RECREATIONS 145 

" But, my good woman, have you no pity ? " 

"Pity? Not me! Let them have pity wot can 
afford it. It ain't for the likes of me to indulge in no 
pity. She gets her 'idin' right enough every time I goes 
down to my old 'ome, and she expects it." 

And with that Mrs. Dackrush removed her best bonnet 
of demurest violet, glanced round the kitchen with a sigh 
of serenest satisfaction, and observed that there was 
nothing like a holiday to put a body in good spirits ! 

" Blessed are the merciful ; for they shall obtain 
mercy." 

One day, when Mrs. Sopster was " rather excited," as 
people say here, some one mentioned her ancient enemy, 
Mrs. Boggle. Mrs. Sopster waxed frantic. I urged 
patience and forgiveness. All in vain. Presently, as 
her eyes wandered round the room, they fell on a highly 
coloured picture of Christ on the cross. A great calm 
seemed suddenly to possess her. 

11 It's quite right, wot you tell me about being for- 
givinV' she said, in a wonderfully subdued voice ; " it's 
only right and proper. Look at that ! " She pointed 
to the ugly little print. I looked obediently. Need- 
less to say, I was delighted at the change that had come 
over her. " Look at that ! " she repeated with energy, 
thrusting forth a forefinger. " Wot did He do ? " 

" You know," I answered, gravely. 

" Yes, I know ; / know. He forgave His enemies." 

I nodded. 

" He forgave His enemies," repeated Mrs. Sopster, 
but — " she brought her clenched fist down on the table 
with a crash — " I'm blowed if I do ! " 

Funerals and fights are the chief recreations of the 
East-ender. But he has other amusements less grue- 

L 



146 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

some and less gross than these ; and among them, 
(without counting fires and football), the serious drama, 
dancing, and singing take the highest place in popular 
favour. 

Football is not a recreation in the East End ; it is a 
religion. Its devotees are to be numbered by hundreds 
of thousands. Its worship is cultivated with a whole- 
hearted devotion which is as rare as it is astonishing. In 
days when zeal for the old faiths is growing cold, the 
apologist can point triumphantly to at least one cult 
which not only shows no sign of decadence, but which 
exhibits an exuberance of vitality unintelligible except 
on the supposition that it is indeed the power unto 
salvation for all future ages ! 

As to fires, so popular elsewhere, they are so common 
in the East End as to excite no special interest. It is 
such an ordinary experience for the engine to come 
tearing down the street, that one scarcely turns to 
see it. A huge fire blazed for hours within a few 
hundred yards of my house and the main road, but it 
caused no sensation whatever. A lady friend, who had 
had the temerity to make an afternoon call on us, was 
on her way back to the station when she encountered a 
great blaze in the West India Docks. So impressed 
was she by the awful grandeur of the spectacle, that she 
was strongly tempted to turn back and inform us of it. 
But, as she was pressed for time, she commissioned a 
girl well known to us to carry the news ; and the girl 
thought so little of the matter that she actually forgot 
all about it. 

But the serious drama, dancing, and singing are real, 
although minor modes, of recreation. The performances 
at the theatrte, sa he pictorial posters testify, are unique. 



RECREATIONS 147 

Here a convict is throttling an elderly gentleman in 
evening dress. There a juvenile gentleman, with a 
moustache impossible at his age, also in evening dress, 
is smashing plates over a friend's head, and all is blood 
and crockery. Elsewhere a lovely lady, very much in, 
or out of, evening dress, is stabbing her truly wedded 
husband in evening dress, while the youth who has 
caused all the trouble (he is in evening dress) is engaged 
in swallowing an enormous dose of prussic acid. Escaped 
convicts, ticket-of-leave men, murderers, highway robbers, 
and villains of every kind and degree bulk largely in 
these plays. The East-ender's drama is like his litera- 
ture — lurid. 

The great art of dancing is wonderfully represented 
in the East End. As everybody knows, and nobody can 
explain, children and young people revel in the exercise, 
disporting themselves with a grace and abandon that 
are not to be found elsewhere. Where do they learn ? 
Who can tell ? Possibly the pantomime may be a 
training-ground for some East End children, but not for 
many. I certainly never heard of a Millwall child 
performing on the stage ; and I very much doubt 
whether one such child in a hundred has ever been to a 
theatre, even as a spectator. Yet street-dancing in 
Millwall is a delight to those who have eyes for the 
beautiful. Accurate, refined, and rhythmical, it is the 
outward expression of that joy of life which, peculiar to 
the East-ender, is scarce extinguished after years of 
untold hardships. On all great occasions — and what 
would be a small occasion elsewhere is a great one in 
the East End — this joy of life gushes forth spon- 
taneously. A temperance demonstration will evoke it, 
or a Sunday School excursion, or a yard beano, or a 

L 2 



148 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

women's outing, or a religious procession. Where the 
occasion is, there are the dancers. Ragged and hungry 
they may be, but they will dance with a religious 
fervour which puts to shame the paltry evolutions of the 
drawing-room. 

Barbara was at once our pride and our pet. Although 
only six years old, she was much sought after for all 
local entertainments. I can see her as I write, diminu- 
tive, dainty, precise, with a definite intention in her 
manner that struck the stranger as almost uncanny. 
Dancing was a serious matter to Barbara. On her knees 
by her bedside, in her long, white nightgown, with hands 
reverently clasped and eyes upraised, she would pray 
about it : " Please, dear Lord, help me to dance well to- 
morrow, and make me a good girl. Amen." Asked 
whether dancing before so many people ever made her 
nervous, Barbara answered in her precise way, " No ; 
because I have asked God to help me." 

An East End ball-room is a pleasant sight. The 
form is excellent, and a great contrast to the violent 
scrambles that pass for dancing in many a high-class 
suburb. The lads are occasionally somewhat of 
hobbledehoys ; but the girls are almost invariably grace- 
ful. The scene is a charming one, all colour, light, 
youthful gaiety and harmonious movement. Farrow, of 
" Lovely Man " fame, stood transfixed when I suddenly 
introduced him to one of our " hops." " It is amazing," 
he said ; " I confess that I never imagined anything 
like it." He was right ; the thing is unimaginable — 
must be seen to be believed. It is a replica, in 
cheaper but not less attractive metal, of a similar 
function in the West. As Potter said to Miss Sacker- 
by, " What more could they want ? They've every- 



RECREATIONS 149 

thing that heart can desire, even to powder, puff, and 
hairpins." 

There exists in all of us, I suppose, in our unregene- 
rate moments, a desire to monopolise life and think we 
are doing God service thereby. Occasionally, I have 
caught myself napping in this respect. I remember 
overhearing the following conversation between Mylie 
and a caller : — 

11 I want to know about Free's dancing-class, when it's 
held, and so on." 

" Thursday," answered Mylie, with her usual brevity. 

" That'll suit me all right. Tell Mr. Free I'll join. 
I can dance, you know ; I've had lessons. But a girl 
gets a bit rusty, and it's so awkward not to know the 
figgers when you go into Society." 

I summoned Mylie. " Who was that ? " 
" Sally Friggins." 

II Poor Sally ! " I began ; but a doubtful, smouldering 
light behind Mylie's spectacles, and a twitching of her 
lips, reminded me of an extraordinary outburst of mirth 
but a week before. " Thank you," I said ; and as the 
girl withdrew, I finished my thought — " Poor Sally ! 
Works at the factory for eighteenpence a day, and 
goes into ' Society ' in the evening ! Poor, pathetic 
Sally ! " 

And yet, why not ? After all, have not she and her 
peers as much right to " Society " as anybody ? Why 
shouldn't Sally enjoy herself in her own way ? Nowhere 
is the bitter fruit of our brutal class distinctions more 
evident than in the jealous tendency to "corner" the 
joys of life. What is to be deprecated with some show 
of reason is the exaltation of mere amusement at the 
expense of everything else. There are advanced clubs 



150 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

in East London which give variety entertainments on 
Sunday mornings, when old-fashioned folk are at their 
prayers. One does not wish to be narrow-minded ; but 
the idea of short-skirt dancing and beer-swilling in the 
noontide glare of our peaceful English Sunday is 
somewhat upsetting even to the hardiest of us. But 
Sally, although no church-goer, would as lief patronise 
such a place as go barefoot. 

The East-ender's singing is not so good as his danc- 
ing, but he seems to get quite as much pleasure out of 
it. It is not always so enjoyable to the listener, how- 
ever. The singing of the gangs of lads at the street 
corners used to be one of the most particular character- 
istics of Millwall ; and the uncouth noise was apt to 
give the stranger a curious sense of discomfort. The 
sudden, unexpected roar of coarse and discordant voices, 
in the darkness and desolation of the place, was start- 
ling and bewildering. When a certain social movement 
was inaugurated here, the servants were so terrified at 
the nocturnal " singing " that it was difficult to gain 
admission to the house after dark ; and, during a livelier 
evening than usual, dear old Mrs. Neighbours, who had 
been " West " all her life, was so overcome with joy at 
an unexpected call from my wife, that she forthwith 
fell a-sobbing on her shoulder. 

Still more unnerving is the drunken home-coming of 
a festive party at one or two in the morning. The 
shrill shrieks of the women, the monotonous howlings 
of the men, the draggling and shuffling of irresolute, 
feet, the savage screams which crash into and shatter 
the sentimental cadences of some well-known melody, 
combine to form a horror of noise more abominable 
than anything I have ever imagined. 



RECREATIONS 151 

I was at one time under the common, but erroneous, 
impression that in the matter of music the East-cnclcr 
knows what is good. He knows nothing of the kind. 
How should he? In my ignorance I would get friends 
of mine who happened to be endowed with the gift of 
song to come and give us the benefit of their skill, but I 
had to abandon that plan. What happened at my con- 
certs was this. My vocal friends would get on the plat- 
form, one after another, and sing beautifully, their 
brilliant performances being received with discreet, very 
discreet, applause. At the end of twenty minutes of this 
diplomatic fooling, some one would suddenly call out, 
" Bill wants to sing [ Tim's little doner.' " Then another 
would shout, " No ! Polly's goin' to give us * Ow 'e kissed 
'er in the gloamin? " On that there would arise a very 
babel of voices : " Go on, Polly ! " " Buck up, Bill ! ' 
" Get aiit, all the lot o' you ! I'm not goin' to sing no 
silly songs," " You give up shovin' o' me, that's all ! " 
" I've got a cold in my 'ead, I tell you." After five 
minutes of wrangling, Bill would appear on the platform, 
flushed, and askew as to collar and tie. With arms 
behind him, head on one side, eyes half shut, left leg 
stiff as cast-iron, right leg bent and wriggling, he would 
emit sundry violent jets of sound, for all the world as if 
they had been shot from a gun. The audience would 
take up the chorus until the whole place rocked again ; 
and, in the midst of the yelling excitement, my musical 
friends would feel so much out of it that they would 
humbly pack up their things, insisting that they really 
must be going. 

I once asked Mylie if she were fond of singing. 

" Most," was her answer ; " but not of cliarcli singing. 
Them things you call anthems, they goes up and down 



1 52 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

up and down, all mixed, joggled and difficult-like, 
so that I can't make 'em out nohow." 

Mylie here voiced a fairly general opinion, I fancy. 

On another occasion I was expatiating, somewhat 
verbosely, on the rendering of an important solo by 
one of our choristers, and begged Mylie' s opinion of it. 

" Not 'arf bad," declared Mylie, with an indulgent grin ; 
" but of course it wasn't a patch on ' Down the street 
there is a bloomin' riot,' by that funny feller at Saturday's 
social. Now, that was lovely" 

I used to imagine I had a decent voice. In the old 
days I believe I was rather proud of it. But vanity in 
this regard was cured before I had been six months in 
the East End. I was giving my choir boys a lesson in 
voice-production, their tendency being to keep their 
mouths shut and their heads on their chests. I stood 
erect, threw out my chest, opened my mouth wide, and 
said, " Look at me, lads ; sing like this," at the same time 
producing, as I supposed, a musical note. I had scarcely 
finished, when Murrens, an intelligent lad of twelve, who 
was watching me attentively, began to speak, but seemed 
to change his mind. 

" Yes ? " I said, encouragingly. 

" We have plenty of that kind of thing from father." 

" Really ! So your father sings, does he ? I am very 
glad to hear that." 

" I don't know about singin\" said the boy, with per- 
fect seriousness ; " but he makes that sort of noise when 
he yawns." 

He was a particularly superior kind of lad, was 
Murrens • so much so, in fact, that women were always 
doing their best to spoil him. Yet it was he who 
confided to me that he had never heard of " God bless the 



RECREATIONS 153 

Prince of Wales," nor of " Men of Harlech " ; but he was 
anxious to inform me that he knew " God save the Queen." 
Very few East End lads, I should imagine, arc acquainted 
with the good old British songs which I was brought 
up to believe to be the precious heritage of every British 
child. 

Nevertheless, one can truthfully say that the East- 
ender is not only fond of music, but is himself, in his 
own way, musical. The public-house sing-song of 
Saturday night, with its yelling choruses and the tap-tap 
of the chairman's hammer, are familiar and, when one 
has got used to them, not altogether unpleasant sounds. 
Women and children are often sweet singers ; and with 
perseverance it is possible to get together a fairly 
effective choir. 

Some of the East End songs are practical, some are 
sentimental, and some lay claim to being humorous. 
All are plain, not to say undraped. Take the one with 
the exciting title, " Those wedding bells shall not ring 
out." It tells how, at the identical moment in which 
the lifelong fate of two human beings was about to be 
sealed, an unwarrantable interruption occurred. There 
was a shriek of woe, a flashing blade (these things are 
always " blades "), and the bride and bridegroom (both 
of them, mind you !) immediately became stone dead, 
and ranged themselves side by side at the foot of 
the altar. 

Again, consider the story of the " Empty Chair." An 
unfortunate gentleman is left a widower ; but, instead of 
shedding useless tears, as a less gentlemanly gentleman 
would have done, he falls back (metaphorically) upon his 
infant son, and announces his general intentions in the 
following irreproachable verse : — 



154 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" But I've a young life to defend ; 
I will not die a coward's end ; 
No, no, I'll stick to baby true ; 
My boy, my child, I still love you." 

There is the history of the young man who lived 
" underneath." What a world of undeserved worry that 
young man had ! He seems to have been rather a good 
young man, too. But, alas ! good young men always 
have so much trouble. The vagaries of the family on 
the floor above this young man were beyond all 
endurance. Their quarrels, their language, their violence, 
wore the young man to a shadow ; and, to make matters 
worse, there was a son in that objectionable family who 
was — 

" A mark on the upper classes, 

And says he will give them beans ; 

On the dynamite, all the night, 

Makes infernal machines." 

The miseries of the young man " underneath M reached 
an artistic but intolerable climax on washing-day, when 
soap-suds drifted through the ceiling and descended 
gently but firmly upon the young man's unprotected 
head. 

The " humorous" song is a firmly established institution 
in the East End. It is rarely humorous, however, some- 
times vicious, and almost always vulgar. Of the vicious 
song I cannot, of course, give examples ; but " The 
Jilted Shoeblack" may be taken as a type of the humor- 
ous song. This gentleman informs us that he had been 
ten years " trotting out a donah," " when another bloke 
with money comes along " and upsets his matrimonial 
plans. The lady's ingratitude is lamented in this 
wise : — 



RECREATIONS 155 

'• I suppose she won't remember all the cash I said I'd spend, 
When I walked her off to 'Ampstead all the way ; 
I suppose she won't remember 'ow I used to pawn her watch, 
And promise I would take her to the play. 

" To-day I met 'er suddin', and I said, "Ow are yer, Liz?' 
She looked at me, and then turned up her nose, — 
Me who'd got the 'ome except the furniture and things : 
She won't remember that, now, I suppose." * 

Other examples are " I'm getting ready for my 
mother-in-law," and " We've all been having a go at it." 
Here is a stanza of the latter, followed by the chorus : — 

" There's some lodgers a-living with us, 
And they've made such a terrible fuss. 
They've bought a chicken for dinner to-day, 
Wanted it cooked — I heard them say. 
Mother she soon cleaned up the hob, 
Charged 'em a bob for doing the job. 
When the chicken was cooked — oh, lor ! 
The lodgers came down and I had to roar — 

We've all been having a go at it, 

All been having a go at it ! 
Somebody pinched its wings and toes — 

I had a bit off the ' parson's nose, 5 
Oh, good gracious ! 

Didn't we make a show, 
Seventeen of us — besides myself — 
And we've all been having a go." 

The purely (not impurely) vulgar song is so prevalent 
as to make any selection difficult. " Let go, Eliza ! " is 
fairly typical ; and so is 

" Liza, you are my donah ! 
You are my little peach ! 
Meet me round at the fish shop, 
And I will buy you a penn'orth of each — Lor' luv yer ! 



156 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

No bloke dare come and kiss you, 

Or for 'im I shall go ; 

If I should lose my temper, 

Then it's ' What ho ! ' Liza Johnson— yes, * What ho 1 ' " * 

A pattern of song much to be commended as directly 
making for righteousness, and of increasing popularity, 
is the eminently practical. This concerns itself with 
everything, from love to fiscal reform, but exhibits a 
strong predilection for love. Sometimes it tries its hand 
at matchmaking : — 

" There's a girl wanted there, there's a girl wanted there, 
He don't care if she's dark or fair, 
There's a nice little home that he's willing to share — 
Hurry up, young ladies, and don't be shy ! there's a girl wanted 
there." * 

At other times it concerns itself with the exaltation 
of love for love's sake : — 

"Love is more than gold to me, I don't want your L.S.D., 
I just want the girl I love, believe me on my word, 
I don't want your wealth and land, I don't want your mansion 

grand, 
It's not the cage I'm after, it's the bird." 

Anon, taking as its thesis " You can get a sweetheart 
any day, but not another mother," it informs us prettily 
that 

" There's an old-fashioned cottage with ivy round the door, 
A quaint old kitchen with sand upon the floor ; 
There's a dear old lady, and, wherever I may roam, 
I think of my mother and my dear old home." * 

Then it proceeds to do justice to "daddy," in the 
role of little son's companion : 



RECREATIONS 157 

" I love daddy, my dear daddy — 
And I know that he loves me : 
He's my playmate — rain or shine, — 
There ain't another daddy in the world like mine." 

Or as ennobled by his daily toil for those he loves : 

" ' My daddy's a gentleman — he's dressed fine ; 
My daddy don't go to work at half-past nine/ 
Then the other maid replied, ' That's quite true, 
But my daddy, you see, 
Works for mother and me, 
So my daddy's a gentleman, too.'"* 

But of all the East End songs, the sentimental has 
the firmest grip on public favour. Here, again, one 
suffers from an embarrassment of riches. There's the 
person " that nobody loves at all," although, contradic- 
torily enough, " everybody's loved by some one." There's 
the small boy who, when caught travelling in the train 
without a ticket, assures the soft-hearted conductor that 
he is on his way to see his (the small boy's) dying 
mother. And there's that other small boy who addresses 
the skylark after this fashion : — 

" If, among the angels, mother you should see, 
Ask her if she will come down again to poor dear daddy and 
me." * 

Curiously enough, morality is often at a serious 
discount in the sentimental song. Doing evil that good 
may come is openly, if indirectly, advocated. In " It 
only makes me love her all the more," the over-fond 
one sings — 

" Once she pinched a watch and then she sold it ; 
People called her { thief,' but still 
It wasn't for herself, but for a pal of hers, 
Who laid at home so ill." 



158 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

And another gentleman, sick of the same fever, consoles 
himself for his partner's frequent infirmities with the 
reflection that — 

" She's my wife, and I took her for better or worse ; 
She's my wife, be she blessing or be she a curse ; 
Good or bad, I will stick to her while I have life ; 
I took her for better or worse, you know, and she's my wife." * 

Of course, the main theme of the sentimental song is 
love, love, and love all the time : 

" Because I love you ! Because I love you ! 
My life knows no regret, e'en tho' we have not met. 
True time shall prove you, no one above you, 
I cannot you forget, because I love you." 

The writers of these ditties ring the changes liberally 
enough ; but the peal is always the same, musical as far 
as it goes, but limited. The " other woman " is not 
forgotten : 

" Are we to part like this, Bill, are we to part this way ? 
Who's it to be, 'er or me ? Don't be a-frightened to say ! 
If ev'rything's over between us, don't never pass me by, 
'Cos you and me still friends can be, for the sake of the days 
gone by." 

Nor is the young lady named Mignonette, who wasn't 
to forget he loved her yet, although she much preferred 
the other fellow ; nor the " bird in a gilded cage," who 
looked happy but was nothing of the kind, her beauty 
having been " sold for an old man's gold " ; nor that dear 
girl " Sweetheart May," who, like so many dear girls of 
a similar type, had no proper sense of duty, or surely she 
would have stuck to her boy-lover and not have gone 
and married somebody else. The sentimental song 



RECREATIONS 159 

holds such imperial sway because East End life is for the 
most part lacking in all that makes for emotion and 
tenderness. The sentimental song fills the empty places 
in the hearts of a people whose culture is limited, but 
whose loves and hates are as deep and real as those of 
the rest of the world. 

I cannot leave this subject without saying a word 
about the patriotic song. From the blood of the slain 
on the battle-fields of South Africa sprang a sense of 
brotherhood new to the East End. As, day by day, the 
newspaper unfolded the development of affairs, heaping 
horror upon horror of calamitous defeat, men who had 
hitherto been strangers to the sense of patriotism 
were stirred to their souls' depths with love of their 
country. What more natural than that they should 
express this new-found emotion in song? In quick 
succession came many a heart-stirring appeal for unity, 
for the forgetting of old hatreds in the common cause of 
brotherly love ; and " What do you think of the Irish 
now ? " " Bravo ! Dublin Fusiliers ! " and many other 
challenges of a similar kind were the outward signs of 
the leavening process going on in the nation's heart. 
And when, after weeks of weary waiting, came tidings 
of the relief of Mafeking, the deadly indifference of East 
London broke forth into noble enthusiasm. " On the 
Wall " the intelligence arrived late ; and most of us 
were abed when the river sirens and the factory bells, 
first mildly and modestly as if half afraid of their own 
voices, then boldly, defiantly, clamorously, announced the 
glorious tidings. Downstairs three steps at a time went 
I. Into the church I ran, and there, in the solemn dark- 
ness of it, set to work ringing the bell as I had never 
rung it before. My wife was rushing from door to door, 



i6o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

crying, " Get up ! Get up ! Mafeking is relieved. Come 
to church ! Come and thank God ! " 

Never was such a congregation as we had that night. 
Men reeking with fumes of beer and tobacco, women 
wrapped in Shawls because they had had no time to dress 
themselves, children shivering from their first sleep, with 
one accord they answered the summons. I slipped on 
my surplice, crept humbly to the altar, and poured out 
my soul in such words as came. And when I sat down 
to the organ and played over the Old Hundredth, and 
that heterogeneous assembly of human beings " praised 
God from whom all blessings flow/' it was as if a great 
sorrow had been lifted from the hearts of a united 
family. Inspiring ? I believe you ! The walls of 
" Little St. Cuthbert's M will listen for a long time before 
they hear such music again. 



CHAPTER VII 

WORK AND WAGE 

There are some curious methods of getting one's 
living in the East End. Perhaps the strangest of all is 
that of the pawnbroker's tout. Touting of this kind is 
woman's work. Proud man will not soil his hands with 
the degrading business. Yet I never heard that the 
brute was content with less than the lion's share of the 
profits. Stella Prince was a tout. 

I made Stella's acquaintance some seven years ago. 
She stopped me in the street one day, and asked me, in 
a pitiful, despairing way, if I could " do anything " with 
her husband. She had two black eyes, and her cheeks 
were of a ghastly pallor. I " did something " with her 
husband ; but at the last moment she would not prose- 
cute, and so the case fell through. After that, things 
went from bad to worse with Stella. Her husband 
drank away nearly all his earnings ; in his delirium he 
beat her mercilessly. While he was sleeping off the 
stupor of the night's debauch, his children and hers 
would be crying for food. The woman looked hither 
and thither for employment, and at length found it in 
that which only the lowest of her class would descend 
to. Henceforth, every Monday morning saw her collect- 

M 



1 62 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

ing from house to house the oddest imaginable assort- 
ment of articles : pots, pans, pictures, ornaments, bits 
of finery, clothes — mostly clothes. Henceforth, every 
Saturday night saw her collecting pence from door to 
door, slinking down to the pawnshop, and presently 
emerging bent double under her heavy burden. 

Poor Stella ! What a woman you might have been 
under happier circumstances ! When I have met you 
with those hideous bulging bundles under your ragged 
shawl, how my heart has ached for you ! You never 
saw me at those times — you could not. The shame of 
your shameful profession was heavy on you. You 
realised that, in the eyes of the world, there was for you 
but one step of infamy below that which you had taken. 
And your little ones — the thin, pale-faced boy who 
helped to carry the " things," and who always greeted me 
with a royal smile ; and the wisp of girlhood who seemed 
to share the horror of your misery and your passionate 
desire to hide it — what of them ? God help you, my 
sister ! For there is no help for you from man. 

Another shady profession is the crimp's. Jack Tar 
is merry but not wise, and the crimp is the parasite 
that feeds on his folly. When Jack " signs on," it is 
customary for him to receive a note of hand cashable 
after his ship has sailed. This method was invented to 
save the simple creature from himself; for, in earlier 
days, it was the custom to give him a month's wages in 
advance, and the fool got drunk on the strength of it, 
and missed his ship. But the crimp, who frequently 
keeps the beer-shop, is equal to the new arrangement, 
and for a consideration will cash the advance notes at 
sight. So Jack still arrives on board penniless. 

In the East End there are numberless working-men 



WORK AND WAGE 163 

who arc "Jack Tars" in nature if not in name. Need- 
less to say, there is no lack of swindlers to fleece them. 
Blunt, whose character as an affectionate husband I 
once vindicated in the teeth of twelve suspicious jury- 
men, crimps his fellow-workmen. His method is 
simplicity itself. Let the reader remember that the 
working-man of Saturday is a different creature from 
the working-man of Monday. On Saturday he is 
generous, open-handed, happy as a king ; on Monday he 
is morose, close-fisted, gloomy as a comedian on a holi- 
day. From Monday to Saturday he is in the depths. 
The public-house doors stand wide, but they serve only 
to tantalise his appetite : his pockets are absolutely 
empty. To him, in his deplorable plight, comes Blunt, 
like an angel of light, with a plan of immediate relief. 
" Take this little brass disk," says he to the thirsty one, 
after the manner of a conjurer, " present it at yonder bar, 
and the results will surprise you." 

" How much ? " asks the thirsty one. 

" Sixpence, please, on Saturday," says Blunt 

" My Gawd ! " exclaims the thirsty one, smacking his 
lips, grabbing the disk, and darting into the beer-shop. 

" My — conscience ! " says Blunt, at the thought of his 
6,000 per cent, profit. 

Enough of the shady side of work. Let us turn to 
the consideration of the bond fide toiler. The East End 
is the ^workshop of London. There, everything that 
can be made is made, not excepting fortunes, which, for 
the most ''part, the fortune-makers keep to themselves. 
Consider, for example, this hive of industry, the Isle of 
Dogs. What a wealth of production it can boast ! 
Ships, from the lordly man-o'-war to the humble-minded 
barge ; all that appertains to ships — masts and oars, 

M 2 



1 64 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

sails and ropes, tanks and cisterns, blocks and steering- 
gear, casks and tarpaulin. Here pickles are made, and 
paint, boilers and sacks, chemicals and wire-netting, dis- 
infecting fluids and lead, encaustic tiles, railway sleepers, 
barrels and bottles ; here are varnish works and lubricat- 
ing oil works, foundries for brass and iron, copper works, 
smelting and gold-ore works, timber yards and fibre 
works. And the Isle of Dogs is typical of the whole of 
the East End. In this unknown land, men, women 
and children labour strenuously for the meat that 
perishes in order that they themselves may live. Theirs 
is the incessant toil, the labour that does not physic pain, 
the meagre meal eaten in discomfort, the unhomelike 
home. Oh, their wonderful patience ! What a sight it 
is to see them streaming from work at close of day. 
They are so tired, so hot and grimy, yet so light-hearted 
withal, that it makes one glad, even as it makes one sad, 
merely to look at them. 

To get work, to do it, to keep it : these are the three 
requisites of the toiler's life ; and of the three the get- 
ting is the most important. So far from shirking work, 
the goal of the respectable working-man, passion- 
ately striven for, is to secure it. He is painfully aware 
of the wolf of hunger at the door, cruel and blood- 
thirsty, waiting for the slightest chance to force an 
entrance. Be his work, therefore, never so unhealthy, 
never so exacting, the radiant smile will light up his face 
with very gratitude. Only when it fails does the light fail. 

The respectable working-man out of work quickly 
degenerates. His gait grows slovenly, his speech halting. 
The better man he is, the harder is his failure to bear. 
He falls farther than the sluggard because he has 
farther to fall ; he rises more slowly because he has 



WORK AND WAGE 165 

fewer to help him up. For, strange as it may seem, it is 
often easier for a careless man to get work than for a 
Steady man. The good-for-nought frequents the public- 
houses and the clubs ; he has a crowd of pot-compan- 
ions. But the steady man is a stay-at-home, known 
neither to club nor pub. His foreman is not always 
partial to him ; he is not popular with his fellows. I 
have known a man of excellent character and ability 
remain out of employment for months together, while 
the ne'er-do-well would drift, haphazard, from place to 
place, never lacking a bed or a meal or a glass of beer — 
especially a glass of beer. The respectable man may 
have served a firm faithfully for twenty years ; but a tiff 
with his superior, an accident, a serious illness, or even a 
slight one, will settle his business. 

Fear of the future kills the working-man. Rivers 
was one of those whom it is an honour to have known. 
Industrious, upright, highly intelligent, he was employed 
in one firm for the whole of his life. Yet the fear of 
the future killed him. " My wife and children, 5 ' were 
the words most frequently on his lips during his days of 
health. " My wife and children," were the words that 
spoke in his eyes as he lay dying in the London 
Hospital. It is the uncertainty that kills. 

Take the case of Cartwright. I felt that young fellow's 
death as if it had been that of my own brother. He was 
terribly ill, yet he would stick to his work. ei Rest, my 
dear boy," said I. " Let me send you into the country 
for three months. You will come back a new man." 

" How can I ?" was his answer. " If I give up, I'm 
done for. There are a dozen men ready to step into my 
shoes. What will become of the missus and the kids ? 
I must hold on." 



1 66 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

He held on. It was pitiful. He had a pretty wife 
and three bonny children. I begged a few guineas from 
friends, and sent him off to a celebrated physician. He 
returned radiant : the doctor had promised him life, 
I remember how he repeated the word again and 
again, laughing aloud with joy, " Life ! life ! " " Merely 
a matter of time," he said. I had other thoughts. 

The days passed. He grew weaker, weaker ; but he 
would not give in. The night before he died he made 
ready for another visit to the doctor. He was too feeble 
to walk twenty yards ; so it was arranged that he 
should have a cab. A cab in Millwall ! Carefully and 
methodically he prepared for the morrow : what he was 
to wear, when he was to start, what he was to say. He 
could not speak above a whisper ; his breath came 
sharp and quick ; his face was livid ; but he was as 
cheerful as a cricket. 

" It'll be all right," he said, with a bright smile. 
" Merely a matter of time, you know. I must hold on." 

Next morning I was called to his bedside. It was 
eleven o'clock ; he was to have started at ten. " Hullo, 
old chap, what's this ? " 

" Just a bit done up," he gasped. " Better presently." 

He didn't care for me to pray with him. He had 
never been one of that sort, he said ; no good in 
pretending. 

A little later I saw him again. He was so bright that 
I was perplexed. " Do you know you are dying ? " I said. 

He looked at me steadily for a minute. Then, speak- 
ing clearly amid the thick come-and-go of his breath, he 
answered : " Not me ! He'll pull me through all right. 
Didn't he promise ? I must hold on for the sake of the 
missus — and the kids." 



WORK AND WAGE 167 

A while after he muttered, M Can't understand it at 
all. What have I got to go for? Always straight. 
Done nothing to be ashamed of. Can't understand it." 

11 Nor I. But we'll say ' Our Father/ eh ? " 

He signified assent. His people crowded silently 
into the room. We stumbled through the Lord's 
Prayer together. 

" Can't understand it, all the same," he repeated, when 
we had finished. " Fair puzzle to me. But I must hold 
on." 

He held on for tw r o hours longer. Then he passed 
over. A brave, strong, noble soul ! 

The respectable working-man goes in perpetual dread 
of the future. Sickness means starvation or the work- 
house ; and in his estimation there is not much to choose 
between them. 

So there are few holidays for him, and few minutes in 
the long day wherein he may seek relaxation from the 
daily grind. He rises from bed, and he goes to work ; 
he comes from work, and he goes to bed. There are not 
many spaces in his life. It is hard and dreary ; it would 
be altogether impossible but for that sleepless wolf howl- 
ing incessantly at the door. He works overtime when- 
ever possible, the restrictions of the law being quietly 
ignored by his employer. Sunday is an unwelcome 
holiday, and so are the two or three days in the year 
consecrated to booze by his fellow-labourers ; besides 
which, there is always the possibility of a ruined day 
when one is dependent upon a lazy or drunken mate. 
The respectable working-man would willingly forego 
rest of every kind could he rake together a few extra 
shillings for his wife and little ones. Robinson occurs 
to me as an example. During the five years he was at 



1 68 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Liddell's he had only three days " off," and he was not 
particularly keen even about them. 

The working-man is further hampered by the system 
of blackmail to which men occupying posts of trust and 
responsibility unblushingly condescend. The foreman 
holds the lives of the workers in his hands, and sells to 
the highest bidder. Even when a man has secured a 
job, he must bribe his foreman if he would keep it. " I 
never lowered myself to that," said Binder, " but many 
of my mates have done so. They are there " — he ex- 
tended his knotted hands with a pathetically eloquent 
gesture : " I am here." 

Many highly respectable firms pay their men labourers 1 
wages, say sevenpence an hour, while they charge their 
clients mechanics' wages, say eightpence-halfpenny an 
hour. Complaint would spell dismissal. The wise worker 
keeps his thoughts to himself. I know of a man whose 
average earnings were eighteen shillings a week. Having 
a wife and children dependent on him, he was naturally 
on the look-out for any means of increasing this meagre 
pittance. Hearing of a watchman's job for a single 
night, he jumped at it, although the weather was bitterly 
cold. For this service half-a-crown was actually paid, 
but only one-and-sixpence found its way into this poor 
fellow's pocket. " I am a living witness that black- 
mailing of the kind does exist ; God help you to expose 
it ! " a working-man wrote to me, and enclosed his 
dinner money for a sick brother who had been victimised 
by this atrocious system. 

One dark December day I was called in to see Lemon. 
He was ill and starving. The charitable society to 
which he had applied for relief would have nothing to 
do with him because, having examined the books of the 



WORK AND WAGE 169 

firm where he had been employed, they had made 
the interesting discovery that his earnings were 

larger than he had represented them to be. So Lemon 
was written down a liar, and his application was rejected. 
Having my doubts as to the justice of this decision, I 
invited a working-man friend to a smoke and a chat. 
At an opportune moment I broached the matter of 
Lemon. My friend smiled and said, " Oh, that's a 
regular thing. Of course, the governors don't know 
anything about it, or, if they do, think it best to keep 
their eyes shut. It's like this : ' plush profits/ as they 
are called, are regarded by the foreman as his ' perks ' 
(perquisites), and to all intents and purposes are a tax 
on the men under him. Say a man earns twenty-five 
shillings a week. Well, the foreman will pay him 
twenty-four shillings and pocket the shilling ; but he 
will enter the whole twenty-five shillings on the firm's 
books to the man's credit." 

The working-man's lot is hard indeed ; but, if possible, 
that of the working-woman is still harder. Two typical 
cases will suffice to illustrate my point. Mrs. Laverstick, 
a widow of sixty, worked at Scamper's. Her hours 
were fifty-six per week ; namely, ten on five days and six 
on one day (Saturday). Her earnings were exactly 
nine shillings, or not quite twopence an hour. The 
dinner-time was not paid for, and there was no interval 
for tea. The floor of the room in which Mrs. Laverstick 
worked streamed with water, the air reeked with steam, 
and the fumes of acid caused her poor old eyes to shed 
abundant tears. Normally, hair, clothes, and feet were 
wringing wet. She could not stand this sort of thing 
for ever, poor soul ! So she left Scamper's and took to 
making grommets, hempen rings used in bolting. When 



170 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

in good form, she could make a grommet a minute ; and 
I have known her to make three hundred of these 
little rings before eleven o'clock in the morning ; but 
she had to get up at half-past three, and work for several 
hours by candle-light, to do it. Fourpence a hundred, 
or about twopence an hour, was her wage, twine being 
provided. 

The other typical case is that of Mrs. Coventry. One 
day, shortly after the death of her husband, I met her 
looking miserably ill and unhappy. Contrary to her 
usual custom, she would have passed me, but I stopped 
her with a look and a word. There were great black 
rings round her eyes ; her figure was bent as if with age. 
She seemed dwarfed, deformed. What was the matter ? 
I asked. Thereupon, in a dull, monotonous voice, she 
began the old story of pinching poverty, expatiating on 
the number of weeks' rent she owed, the clothes and 
bedding " put away " (euphemism for " pawned "), and so 
on ; and she was dropping into rosy reminiscences of 
the past gladdened by a husband who regularly earned 
twenty-two shillings a week, when I caught sight of her 
fingers and uttered an involuntary exclamation. At 
that she paused, and stretched out her hands for me to 
see ; and the tears so long held back brimmed over in a 
scalding flood of self-pity. It was a shocking sight that 
I looked upon. There was nothing human about her 
hands. The fingers were odiously discoloured ; the nails 
were torn and worn to the quick ; the joints were 
knotted and gnarled like those of some hideous abortion. 
I shuddered. " How much ? " I asked, in the staccato 
of repressed emotion. 

"You see, I'm not up to the work," answered Mrs. 
Coventry. " Yest'y, it took me from eight to half-past 



WORK AND WAGE 171 

cloven to do as 'ard a bit o' work as I ever done in my 
life, and I got twopence-halfpenny for it ; and after dinner 

I worked up to seven o'clock an' earnt fivepence. Total 
earnings for the day/ 1 said Mrs. Coventry, with quivering 
lips and a succession of little sobs that shook her — "total 
earnings for the day, sevenpence-halfpenny, s'elp me, 
God ! " 

So help her, God ! She and her kind stand in dire 
need of it. 

And the child-worker ? What is bad for grown-up 
persons is still worse for growing boys and girls. Theirs 
is the mental pain arising from the sharpness of the 
contrast between limited ability and unlimited demands. 
One can guess but faintly what it must be for the work- 
ing boy or girl to have to battle day by day with in- 
herent weakness — physical, moral, mental — and yet keep 
the head above water in a kind of death-struggle. 
Theirs, too, is that terror of losing the means of liveli- 
hood which makes existence almost unbearable. When 
Cory was but sixteen years old, he worked, months on 
end, for seven days a week, despite the rigid law respect- 
ing holidays. On Sunday evenings he would turn up in 
choir, looking so fagged that I was often tempted to 
send him home again, and w T ould have done so but for 
the pleading in his eyes. 

" Why should you work on Sunday when you don't 
want to?" I would say to him. His invariable reply 
was a shrug of the shoulders. " But why ? " I would 
insist. His dark eyes would overflow as he answered : 

II I'd like to see myself arguing with Sampson. It'd be, 
' Aiit you go, then ! ' " 

Cringle, another of my lads, met with a serious 
accident at his work. Shortly afterwards, I fell in with 



1 72 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

him hobbling along with great difficulty. His face was 
white and drawn. 

" Surely you've not been to work ? " I said. 

" Had to, unless I wanted the sack/ 5 was the laconic 
answer. 

But perhaps the hardest lot of all is that of the 
factory-girl ; and that because she has less force to 
rough it than the man or the boy, and less wisdom than 
the woman, while her wage is contemptible. When the 
East End lassie leaves school, she generally goes into 
a " little place." In the " little place " she has to be 
nursemaid, housemaid, cook, and occasionally shop- 
assistant. She begins early, and she finishes late. 
However good her intentions may be, fate is too exact- 
ing for her. In six months she has degenerated into an 
ill-conditioned, discontented, lazy slut. She throws up 
the " little place," and goes into a " sweating " factory. 
In that delectable mansion she mixes with the lowest 
kind of girl going, and learns to love foul and foolish 
things. The " little place " offers no sort of training for 
girls ambitious to serve in good houses ; and no self- 
respecting mistress would take a girl as domestic 
servant from the pigsty of the factory. 

As a general rule, the factory-girl lives far from her 
work, and is therefore obliged to walk several miles 
every day. The north-east wind may blow its bitterest ; 
rain or snow may fall its swiftest ; the mud may lie 
ankle-deep in the roadway, the pavements stream with 
rivulets. It matters not. Long before the grey of 
dawn steals over the sleeping city, the factory-girl must 
rise from her wretched bed, fling on her threadbare 
clothes, and set off on her long tramp. She clip-clops 
along the deserted streets, keenly conscious that the 



WORK AND WAGE 173 

gates will close sharp on the hour, and that to be 
twenty seconds late will ruin her whole day. Sleepily 
she stumbles along, dreaming of the coming Saturday 
night and the long rest of Sunday ; and as she dreams 
and stumbles, she arrives at the factory. She is swept 
through the gates in a vortex of evil-smelling petticoats 
and shawls, as the clamour of many-tongued bells dies 
away and the work of the day begins. 

For five hours at a stretch she must labour. The 
atmosphere of the working-room may be so pungent 
that the eyes may run with water. With every breath 
she draws she may be inhaling, through those parted 
lips of hers, myriads of tiny particles of fibrous stuff 
that set her coughing and coughing, until one of these 
days she will cough her lungs away. She may not sit 
down : the keen eyes of her forewoman are upon her. 
Like a slave of old time, she must go on with her work, 
be it never so exhausting, mechanical, degrading. At 
one o'clock she will be released for dinner. At two she 
will be back again ; and from that time until seven she 
will go on without a break. 

Let the reader note in passing, that the only interval 
allowed for food must be paid for by the factory-girl and 
not by her employer. The great firm cannot spare even 
an hour, so that the serf who is making them rich shall be 
permitted to give her starving stomach something to go 
on : " If you won't work eleven hours at a stretch, but 
will insist on a whole hour for rest and food, then pay 
for your food and pay for your rest — you'll get no pennies 
out of us." And what will her dinner be like ? Well, it 
may consist of the bread and margarine she has brought 
from home, or of a penn'orth of fried fish and a ha'p'orth 
of bread bought at the fish-shop near by. In any case, 



174 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

in view of the fact that very few girls can spend as 
much as threepence on their mid-day meal, it is safe 
to conjecture that it will be insufficient in quantity and 
inferior in quality, although extremely appetising. 

In a certain part of the East End, not a hundred 
miles from Millwall, there was, when I first knew it, no 
place in which the many hundreds of factory-girls 
employed by a neighbouring firm could eat their dinner 
in decency, to say nothing of comfort. To exaggerate 
the danger run by these workers in passing from steam- 
ing kitchens and suffocating rooms into wind or rain, 
sleet or snow, would be impossible. Scantily clad and 
half-fed, they fell an easy prey to disease. It was the 
duty of their employers to provide them with shelter ; 
but for years their employers had shirked that duty, 
leaving to private philanthropy, earnest but insufficient, 
the task that rightly belonged to themselves. The coup 
de grace to this unsatisfactory state of affairs was at 
length given by two practical philanthropists and myself. 
We sent to the firm in question a joint letter, which was 
in the nature of an ultimatum : " If you don't provide a 
dining-room for your girls, we shall do so-and-so." The 
effect was magical. Within twenty-four hours a large 
room was in process of transformation ; and a few days 
later some hundreds of girls sat down to dinner for the 
first time under cover. It was but a partial victory, for 
the comparatively small space at disposal limited the 
number of diners ; but it was a victory all the same, and 
an earnest, let us hope, of greater triumphs to come. 

Let me give a few illustrations of the working life 
of girls I know well. Alice Torby, commonly called 
" Topsy," works in the same factory as that in which Mrs. 
Laverstick worked until she broke down. Her average 



WORK AND WAGE 175 

wage is eight shillings a week, or not quite seven 
farthings an hour ; but, as she puts in a good deal of 
overtime, frequently working on Saturdays until ten af 
night, she will, for such weeks, take as much as ten 
shillings and sixpence. There is only one break in 
the day for Topsy, namely, from one till two, except 
during overtime, when half an hour is allowed for tea. 
Topsy stands at her work all day long, and, if caught 
attempting to sit, is liable to a "jawing." 

Pauline, aged seventeen, works at one of the very best 
factories in the East End. Not long ago, sorely against 
her will, because she was afraid that her earnings would 
fall below their normal standard of eight shillings a 
week, she w r as obliged to adopt a new system of piece- 
work, and was paid a penny and an eighth for her part 
in the packing of every hundred packets of tea. From 
eight in the morning until eight at night, for three 
terrible days, she worked like a veritable nigger, straining 
every nerve to keep up to her standard of earnings. On 
the Thursday she collapsed. For her forty-two and a 
half hours' work she earned exactly four and twopence, 
and she dealt with no fewer than 3,400 packets. 

This is the kind of work that kills. For soldering a 
hundred tins, a child of fourteen can earn twopence- 
halfpenny. Think of it. Twopence-halfpenny for 
two hours of such work ! And the delicate fingers 
bleeding, and the delicate wrists burnt ! How many 
hundreds of tins, my lady, must be soldered before the 
price of your new gown could be paid for ? How many 
thousands of tins, my lord, before you could defray the 
cost of one night's merry-making ? A girl can solder five 
hundred tins a day, for which she will receive one shilling 
and a halfpenny. At the end of the week, Saturday being 



176 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

a short day, she will take six shillings for her six days' 
work. How far will six shillings go ? Obviously, if one is 
to live by soldering tins, many more than five hundred a 
day must be soldered. I know a woman who, on her 
first day, soldered a thousand tins ; on the second, she 
could manage no more than eight hundred and fifty ; 
the third day showed a further drop to seven hundred ; 
and when Saturday came, exhausted in body, despair- 
ing in soul, the poor creature had but eight shillings and 
ninepence to take home to her fatherless bairns. 

To the frantic eagerness of the underpaid worker to 
make sufficient to live on, somehow, anyhow, is doubt- 
less due a large proportion of the terrible accidents 
for which our factories are notorious. Certainly the 
glamour of " high wages " tempts into that death-trap, 
the white- lead factory, many who, in normal circum- 
stances, would as lief work in a sewer. Some such firms 
bait their hooks with a free and appetising breakfast, 
but the price the poor worker has to pay for such 
" liberality " is health and even life itself. Eyes grow 
lustreless, hands useless, one after another the faculties 
of body and mind decay, and the end of the miserable 
victim is the grave. 

Lead kills surely, although slowly. It is to the 
advantage of the employer not to advertise the fact ; 
there is a quite natural tendency to hush up such cases 
as occasionally become public. But those who live 
among the workers know how difficult it would be to 
exaggerate the evils of lead-poisoning. I once spent a 
couple of hours in the midst of thousands of tons of lead. 
" Mind you don't touch it ! " said my guide, warningly ; 
"it's beastly stuff. It creeps under the nails ; it distils 
into the system. Before you know where you are, — 



WORK AND WAGK 177 

well, you've scon things yourself, haven't you ? " Seldom 
is it that one gets such an honest expression of opinion. 
Manufacturer and worker are in league to conceal the 
facts ; the manufacturer for obvious reasons, the worker 
because he is afraid of losing his place. Lead-poisoning 
is nevertheless a fact, although difficult of proof. The 
process of degeneration is so slow as to be almost im- 
perceptible. But the gradual assimilation of small 
quantities of lead, as is well known, is more fatal than the 
rapid absorption of larger quantities. Woe to the poor 
wretch in whom the deadly work has begun ! 

I imagine my readers to be wondering whether I am 
adhering to the strict truth in the foregoing statements. 
It seems incredible to them that the toilers of the East 
End should be so hounded and harried, that they should 
be so overworked and so underpaid, that they should be 
left so wholly in the hands of tyrannical jacks-in-office, 
who would not know how to treat a rat, much less a 
human being. They are recalling vague impressions of 
Acts of Parliament passed for the protection of the 
worker. " How can these things be while there is a law 
in the land ? " they are asking themselves. 

Well, they can be, and are, simply because human 
nature is human nature, and the battle is to the strong. 
It is w r onderful how many laws a rich man may break 
with impunity, and how few a poor man. The explana- 
tion of the existing practice as to overtime, for 
instance (to take one of the many abuses which embitter 
the toiler's life), is due to what may be regarded in the 
light of an accident. There are occasions, the reader must 
know, when even a few hours' delay may mean ruin 
to certain manufactures. At such times, half as much 
labour again may be required as on normal occasions. 

N 



178 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

To meet such exceptional circumstances, the Factories 
and Workshops Act was modified with respect to 
factories dealing in perishable goods, such as fruit, fish, 
and condensed milk, and allowed an employer, in cases 
of " emergency," to keep his employes at work beyond 
the stipulated hours. But, in view of the essential 
selfishness of human nature, the result, to all who 
possess more than an academic acquaintance with the 
conditions of labour, was a foregone conclusion. For 
the word " emergency " is found to possess wonderfully 
elastic properties, and, while the employer of labour is 
relieved of the trouble and expense of seeking extra 
workers, the labourer himself is forced to work against 
his will and strength. So, from June to September, the 
sweater is helped by the civil law to break the moral 
law, and may systematically overwork his workers and 
yet be held blameless. The Act might have been 
framed for his protection, and not for that of the worker. 
Under the aegis of this questionable charter of the 
people's liberties, young people may be kept at hard 
labour for, practically, the round of the clock. It is not 
an impossible thing for a girl to work for seventeen hours 
in a day ; and I know of a case where a mere child was 
forced to " put in " twenty consecutive hours, namely, 
from eight o'clock on Saturday morning to four o'clock 
on Sunday morning. 

Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the evil 
effect of the " emergency " clause in the Act than a 
comparison between the worker in a factory dealing with 
perishable goods and the worker in a factory concerned 
with the weaving of fabrics. For instance, if there is 
pressure of work in a textile factory, the factory-girl 
goes on with her duties comfortably assured that she 



WORK AND WAGE 179 

will not be asked to do more than her share. Not so 
with the girl in a non-textile factory. She is in constant 
dread of being forced to work overtime, to turn her day's 
honest toil into a day of degrading and exhausting 
slavery. Again, the girl in a textile factory works in 
large rooms well supplied with fresh air ; she has 
regular intervals for rest and food ; sanitation and ven- 
tilation are equally well attended to. The girl in a non- 
textile factory is in a very different position. She is often 
obliged to work under the most distressing conditions. 
Times for meals are ruthlessly cut down. She may not 
have even a crust in her pocket to nibble at ; for, in 
factories where comestibles are under preparation, it is 
customary to impose a no-eating rule during work-time. 
Frequently the workrooms are small and ill-ventilated, 
their walls running with water, their floors streaming 
with refuse. Hair, clothes, and feet are constantly 
saturated ; and dangerous falls on the slippery floors, 
resulting in sprains and bruises, are so frequent as to 
excite no comment save the inevitable oath. 

The fact is that the old saying, that you may drive a 
coach-and-four through any Act of Parliament, seems to 
have been invented for an Act ostensibly framed for the 
protection of the worker. To take concrete examples. 
The law says that a twelve hours' worker in a non- 
textile factory must have an hour and a half for meals. 
My little friend, " Chirpy " Titmarsh, who works at 
a non-textile factory, is allowed no more than 
an hour. The law says that such a worker must not 
work at a stretch for more than five hours. " Chirpy " 
works for six and seven hours at a stretch. The law 
says that " a young person " (from fourteen to eighteen 
years of age) is not to work overtime unless under 

N 2 



180 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

exceptional circumstances. As a matter of fact, 
" Chirpy," who has not yet seen her sixteenth year, is 
being worked to death because she has to choose 
between that and no work at all. The law says that " a 
woman M (a person at least eighteen years old) may 
work for two hours' overtime — including a half-hour 
interval after five o'clock — for not more than three days 
a week, and thirty days (in the case of fruit, fish, and 
other perishable articles, fifty days) a year. As a matter 
of fact, Chirpy's widowed mother is being worked under 
practically no conditions save the limits of her endur- 
ance. All these things the law says, and all these 
things are treated with quiet indifference by the employer 
of labour who is still so unregenerate as to regard the 
voluntary work of the worker in the light of the com- 
pulsory toil of the slave. 

Will it be believed, moreover, that firms who 
grind the faces of the poor, deliberately deprive the 
workers of a portion even of their miserable earnings ? 
We all know the evils of " truck," that system of 
imposition which is said to have fined a weaver 
half-a-crown for slaking with a cup of cold water 
the burning thirst induced by working in a tem- 
perature of 90 ; but the pettiness of the fines imposed 
by some sweating firms almost surpasses belief. Sup- 
posing, for example, a girl makes a great effort, and 
earns, with overtime, ten-and-fivepence-halfpenny in one 
week. When she presents herself at the pay-desk, she 
will receive, not ten-and-sixpence, not even ten-and-five- 
pence-halfpenny, but ten-and-fivepence, the extra half- 
penny presumably finding its way into pockets that have 
no possible right to it. Sometimes the extortion is 
on a far more extensive scale. Emily Craboose worked 



WORK AND WAGE 181 

for fifty-five hours for eight shillings. Because she 
declined to give up her Saturday half-holiday and work 
for fifty-seven hours, she was docked of more than two 
hours' earnings, and received only seven-and-eight- 
pence ! 

" But why don't you insist on getting your proper 
wage ? " I have said again and again. 

The answer has always been the same — " Not me ! 
unless I want to get the sack." 

Tyranny of the kind is very general. Children may be 
kept in a condition of abject terror, week in and week 
out, by the overbearing brutality of a forewoman. A 
girl came to me for a hospital letter. She was very ill ; 
I could see that at a glance. She could not speak above 
a whisper. Obviously she had once been beautiful ; but 
disease had laid its paralysing finger upon her, and the 
drooping eyelids, the chalky skin, the shrivelled bust, 
all told the same sad story. The cause of her illness 
declared itself at once ; she brought into the room a 
suffocating stench that stopped the breath. Clothes, 
hair, her very flesh was saturated with the malodorous 
poison. No need for her to explain. 

" What hospital ? " I asked ; and, " In- or out-patient ? " 

" It ain't likely as I can go in," she said with a hoarse 
chuckle. " Aut's good enough for me ; as much as I 
can manage, I guess." 

I filled in an out-patient's letter for the Victoria Park 
Hospital, and the girl backed out of my study, smiling 
awkwardly but gratefully. 

Next day she brought back the letter, the envelope of 
which had become unrecognisably grubby. 

" What's the matter ? " I asked, looking anxiously at 
the anaemic, colourless face. 



1 82 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" 'Tain't no use," she said ; " she won't 'ave it nohow. 
You should 'ave seen 'er face when I arst orf to go to 
the 'orspital. * Knock me daiin with a feather ! ' says 
she. An' you could, too. So I see as it meant the sack, 
and cries orf." 

The extreme probability is that such a girl will 
struggle on for six months or so, collapse, and die pre- 
maturely ; or, worse still, endure long years of terrible 
weakness and uselessness. There are girls in the East 
End who are actually dying on their feet because they 
are afraid to be away from their work a single day. 

What we have to face, speaking generally, is the 
innate selfishness of the employer of labour. There are, 
of course, noble exceptions, but these only prove the 
rule. Here, as elsewhere, the individual is untrust- 
worthy. It is futile for the objector to honest criticism 
to point out the increasing humanitarianism exhibited 
in certain quarters : the reduction of hours of labour, the 
adoption of elaborate preventives of disease and death, 
the schemes for the compensation of the injured and for 
the relief of the broken in health. It is not an imperti- 
nent question to ask, " Have such firms taken these 
humane and business-like measures voluntarily, or under 
compulsion ? " And if it be provable, as I think it is, 
that such exalted conceptions of duty did not occur to 
employers of labour until the State had assumed a 
threatening attitude, we need not waste our breath in 
eulogising the unselfishness of those whose only object 
is to squeeze from the worker the largest possible 
amount of money-making energy for the smallest 
possible pay. 

The evils are all on the side of the worker, the 
benefits all on the side of the employer. Nemesis 



WORK AND WAGE 183 

would drive the employer to ruin were not the slave- 
market practically inexhaustible. When a worker col- 
lapses, he is tossed aside like a dirty dish-clout, and 
applicants trample each other down in the struggle 
for the vacant place. The employer will not regard 
this as a hardship. He will declare that " business must 
be attended to.'' Even he, so he will assure us, is 
occasionally obliged to work when he does not want to, 
and under conditions which are injurious to his health. 
Competition, he will tell us, is as keen among employers 
as among workers. Very well. Be it so. So far, 
employer and worker are alike. But is the employer 
under-fed, ill-clothed, wretchedly housed ? Has he 
nothing to look forward to at the end of his life-long 
toil but penury? If he shows signs of failing strength, 
is he liable to lose the chance of earning his living alto- 
gether? If so, the cases are identical, and we must 
extend to the master the same sympathy that we give 
to the servant. But the cases are not identical. For 
the most part, the employer has a superabundance of 
this world's goods. He is clad in purple and fine linen, 
and fares sumptuously every day. Moreover, his future 
is assured : humanly speaking, it is impossible for him 
to end his days in the workhouse. The worker is the 
victim of a tradition. He is mown down before the 
pestilential breath of spongy sentiment. " Business 
must be attended to." That is one of the copy-book 
moralities which work his ruin. " The law of supply and 
demand must be submitted to." That is another. There 
are hundreds of them. But they all mean one thing, 
namely, that the worker is an inferior person who must 
be treated in an inferior way in order to make the 
superior person still more superior, 



1 84 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

True, there are faults on both sides. There are lazy 
workers as well as indifferent and oppressive employers. 
But what, after all, can we expect? Take the majority 
of the workers of a great industrial centre like the East 
End. Dwarfed in mind and body, untrained, uncultured, 
mere children as regards the stage of development they 
have reached, are we right in expecting of them the 
reasoning powers, the breadth of view, the charity, the 
long-suffering which are ours by right of birth ? Faults 
on both sides? Of course there are. But I contend 
that we expect too much of the workers. What chance 
have they, after all, of learning duty, honesty, reverence ? 
Be it ours, as their elder brothers in the great human 
family, to lead them, with infinite patience and unfailing 
love, out of their cramped life into the liberties of the 
children of God. 

In spite of all that has been said about the life of noble 
toil, work, if not properly regulated, is debasing. From 
such a point of view it is not impossible to understand 
what Slingsby's sister meant when, on being invited to 
join our Church Cleaners' League, she declined on the 
ground that it was so " 'umblin'." In a district like 
Millwall, where the only perfumes are those emanating 
from the chimneys of asbestos, oil, and lead works ; 
where the only music is the clanging and hammering 
of iron in the yards and the puffing and snorting of 
engines ; where the very time of day is regulated, not 
by clocks, but by bells and whistles ; and where it is 
customary to speak of the hour " blowing " instead of 
"striking," work has attained its nadir of ignominy. 
What heartrending cases one comes in contact with, day 
by day ! What tremendous sacrifice of life ! Men and 
women are being crushed and crippled ; fair fyoung 



WORK AND WAGE 185 

lives are drooping to the grave. The strongest, the 
bravest fall and perish. For what ? In spite of the 
prevailing cant ancnt the business use of luxuries, the 
only answer is, " To fill the already overflowing pockets 
of the wealthy, and to increase abundantly their super- 
abundance." 

Altogether amazing is it that the worker should be 
so content under these " whips and scorns." It is not 
because he is unaware of the larger life lying beyond 
him. He knows of, although he does not share, the 
fuller measure of existence enjoyed by his rich neigh- 
bour. The excessive caution bred in him by his stinted 
education is the sole reason for his brute-like endurance. 
When he is better educated, he will revolt ; for he will 
then not only be aware of that outlying life, but bethink 
himself of a method of taking part in it. At present he 
dare not act ; he dare not express himself but in vague 
mutterings ; he dare not even think. When thought 
obtrudes itself, he drowns it in drink or gambling. He 
is not in a condition of natural sleep ; he is under the 
influence of drugs of his own administering. But the 
time is coming when the better education he is gradually 
getting, as a boy at the day-school, as a youth at the 
night-school, as a man in the lecture-hall, will force him 
to think, in spite of beer and horses ; and in that day 
he will snap the toils that bind him as they were tow, 
and enter, like the king he is, into his inheritance. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 

" The Englishman's home is his castle." Within the 
walls of that domestic stronghold he dwells in safety 
and peace. When he speaks of home, he means the 
place of all places, the charmed retreat whither he may 
fly from the stress and strain of the world, where he 
may safely commit his chiefest treasures. There is a 
fragrance about the very word suggestive of the confi- 
dence and joy, the sanctity and solemnity of that family 
life which was ordained from the beginning, and upon 
which our national greatness is founded as upon a rock. 
So much, and more, does home mean to thousands on 
thousands of happy English people. Very good. That 
is as it should be. 

But what does it mean to that million of Londoners 
who want decently housing, especially to those 400,000 
whose family life is spent in the narrowness and stuffi- 
ness of single rooms ? My friend Bonn is a respectable 
working-man. He rents a four-roomed house. The 
first room is occupied by a married man, his wife 
and four children ; the second, by a bachelor ; the third 
and fourth, by Bonn, wife and four children. Thirteen 
persons in all occupy the four poky little rooms. In 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 187 

one of the riverside streets of this district there was a 
house of four small rooms which harboured (I use the 
word advisedly) no less than nineteen persons. In the 
year 1901 — and in the present year, for aught I know — a 
six-roomed house in this neighbourhood " accommo- 
dated " thirty grown people. From the housing point 
of view, St. Cuthbert's Lodge has had a romantic 
history. The proud possessor of eight little rooms, it 
has been in turn a school, a beer-shop, and an asylum 
for gipsies. Forty years ago, I am told, it housed eight 
different families, one for each room ; and within the 
last ten years it could boast a resident population of 
seven adults and twenty-seven children. 

In this East End we turn our work-benches into 
beds, because we have no room for the genuine article ; 
we huddle together at night — men and women, boys and 
girls — in defiance of the laws of health and decency. 
Think of a mother, a father, and three children living 
between four walls ten feet apart, yet finding space for a 
lodger at night ! Think of a room doing double duty, 
occupied at night by day- workers and in the day by night- 
workers ! Think of a room with five beds in it, giving 
sleeping accommodation to seventeen persons ! Does 
the reader want something even more startling ? Well, 
an authentic case is on record in which three men and a 
woman were obliged, for lack of accommodation, to 
sleep in one bed ! 

But why multiply instances ? Overcrowding is an 
acknowledged cancer on the body social. In some 
parts of London 20 per cent., in others 25 per cent, of 
the population are living under conditions which, from 
the point of view of the scientist no less than that of the 
moralist, are entirely condemnable. The result of this 



1 88 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

deplorable state of affairs is loss of time, loss of health, 
loss of life, loss of moral tone. 

The loss of time is calculable, namely, about 
twenty days a year, sometimes less, sometimes 
more. Less or more, however, it is a large slice 
out of a man's working days. Whence this loss? 
Well, there are vast armies of toilers in the East 
End who are obliged to travel to the four points of 
the compass every day in order to secure the merest 
needful accommodation. One would suppose that, after 
a long day's work, home, with its bright fire and steaming 
kettle, would be the very least that these people could 
claim. But it is not their good fortune to get their 
reward until hours after they have earned it. 

Who shall estimate the loss of health and life ? Much of 
the typhoid and consumption so prevalent among us, not 
to mention the thousand minor ills which flesh is heir to, 
is directly traceable to overcrowding. Death has a busy 
time of it in closely-packed and insanitary dwellings. 
Where the overcrowding is normal, he claims nineteen 
per thousand ; where it rises to 23 per cent, he claims 
twenty-three ; where it rises to 30, he claims twenty-four. 

And what shall we say of the most serious loss of all, 
namely, loss of character ? Worse than death itself is 
the degraded life. We shall get no high thinking from 
men whose crippled existences prevent any thinking, 
nor the subordination of the lower passions from those 
whose cramped environment renders noble passions in- 
conceivable. To such unhappy people what a mockery 
must be our glib talk about the joy and sanctity of 
home ! 

And the cause of overcrowding ? Let us dispose at 
once of the theory of natural depravity. It is true that the 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 189 

East-ender has not any adequate realisation of the value 
of cleanliness. He is no lover of fresh air, for instance. 
I have managed to survive in Millwall by having the 
windows of my house open night and day, summer and 
winter. But the windows of the average East-ender are 
hermetically sealed, lest some stray breath of pure air 
should chance into his stifling rooms. The factory 
chimney belches forth destruction ; and in that hot 
breath of Dives the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, 
and the loved life slips away into the shadows. But no 
murmur escapes the East-ender. Smoke, in his view, is 
inevitable, part of the unalterable course of nature ; and 
he would as soon think of opposing it as he would think 
of opposing a thunderstorm. He rarely gets even his 
own chimney swept — the profession of sweep is almost 
unknown in this neighbourhood. When the clogged soot 
becomes insufferable, he blows it out with a pennyworth 
of gunpowder. 

Well do I remember, when we took over St. Cuthbert's 
Lodge, what a battle we had with the foe of filth, although, 
in order to overcome it, we adopted every device known 
to the most up-to-date sanitation. There were living crea- 
tures in this house to which we could give no name, 
vermin as rare as they were loathsome to anyone of 
ordinarily cleanly habits. Especially difficult was the 
extermination of those insects which, more than others, 
symbolise the lowest depth of human foulness ; and I 
recall, not without a shudder, how irresistible our club 
lads found the temptation to break the monotony of 
" reading " by slapping their bare palms on the things as 
they moved sluggishly up and down the w r alls. As a 
matter of history, I have frequently seen the creatures 
referred to crawling over travellers in the local 'bus ; and 



i 9 o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

it is a common experience for us to bring from our 
entertainments parasitic specimens, doubtless of the 
deepest interest to the entomologist, but merely irritating 
to the average layman. 

We will admit, then, that, in the view of many East- 
enders, cleanliness is not next to godliness ; or 
perhaps we ought to say that, in his view, it is equal 
to godliness in its unpopularity. But what does such an 
admission signify ? Not that the East-ender desires dirt 
any more than he desires ungodliness, but that circum- 
stances make it difficult for him to be clean, even as they 
make it difficult for him to be godly. His environ- 
ment is too strong for him. We have no right to be 
surprised at his degradation. Our surprise should be 
reserved for the occasions on whichywe find him, as 
happily we often do, a decent and God-fearing citizen. 
With all our superior advantages, there is no reason 
whatever to believe that we should be one whit better 
than he, were we under compulsion to change places 
with him. Some Easi-enders doubtless might be cleaner 
than they are ; but so might some West-enders. If it be 
true, as indeed it is, that many a poor woman has turned 
a decent house into a pigsty, it is equally true that the 
only reason why many a rich woman has not done the 
same is because she has been able to pay others to clean 
up her mess after her. 

And, while I am on this subject, I should like to add 
that one of the most curious fallacies respecting the 
East End is that, there, people are not rightly people 
at all, but only " masses." East-enders are no more 
" masses " than West-enders. They are simply indi- 
viduals congregated together for mutual benefit. And 
— not to lay stress on the aristocracy which every East- 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 191 

ender can claim as a direct descendant of our common 
parents — the East End abounds in gentlefolk. To cite 
a few of the cases which have come under my personal 
observation : Gilbert's father is a physician of some 
distinction ; Mrs. Millishaw's grandfather was an 
admiral ; an uncle of Murrens' is an officer in the Army ; 
Topsy's uncle is a highly-placed official in India; while 
the Spottmans are nearly related to an earl. 

Natural depravity, indeed ! Why, if the East-ender 
were to follow the example of some of his " betters," he 
would speedily find himself in the gutter. The marvel 
is that, in spite of the abominably unfair conditions 
under which he is compelled to live, he does manage to 
keep himself tolerably decent. " Abominably unfair 
conditions," I say ; and I mean it. He is heavily handi- 
capped all round. To live cheaply one must be rich. 
He, being poor, pays on the higher scale for everything — 
heating, lighting, food, sanitation, housing, poor-rate ; 
and everything he pays for so liberally is inferior in 
quality. Nothing is first-class but the price. He buys 
his coal by the hundredweight, his gas by the penny- 
worth ; he rents his house by the week ; and for these 
" privileges n he is heavily taxed. 

It is the same with food. As I write, a street vendor 
is calling out milk at a penny a pint. I know it is not 
milk ; but Adelina, who has just invested in the stuff, 
does not know. It would be cheaper for Adelina, in 
the long run, if she paid sixpence a quart for real milk ; 
but she supposes, good, easy soul, that the counterfeit 
will "do for baby"! It will "do" for baby, I have no 
doubt. 

Svengali is a purveyor of ice-cream — ice-cream, you 
observe. He is largely patronised by little children, 



1 92 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

who, on hot days, cluster round his barrow by the score, 
eagerly exchanging their halfpennies for dollops of the 
half-frozen filth. He is not a clean man, Svengali. The 
other day he sold a little girl an " ice-cream " which 
contained four vermin. 

So with housing. Despite the ruinous rental the 
working-man stands at, his " home " is often not fit for 
human habitation. Prendergast showed me his room 
last week. What a sight it was ! The wall-paper was 
hanging in clammy strips ; one-third of the ceiling had 
collapsed. Paper, paint, or whitewash had not been used 
on that room for twelve years ! In many parts of the 
East End it is a common experience for the rain to come 
through the roof and dribble through the ceiling of living- 
room or bedroom. I had six years of that kind of thing. 
Many a night I have been awakened by the drip, drip 
of the rain on the counterpane. And I have been 
called late at night to a dying child, to find the water 
literally pouring on to the bed on which she was lying. 

And, then, see how the East-ender is mulcted where, 
of all places, he would naturally expect to be 
treated with justice, not to say magnanimity — I mean, 
on his hardly-earned wages. The toiling Millwall 
docker pays a poor-rate of two-and-fourpence in the 
pound ; the gentlemanly loafer of Belgravia but two- 
pence. That is to say, the docker pays fourteen times as 
much as the "gentleman." This anomaly is due, I suppose, 
to the comfortable doctrine that whatever is, is right. 
But surely it cannot be right for the rich to leave the 
poor to succour each other in their old age, especially 
in consideration of the acknowledged fact that the 
rich man is the chief beneficiary of the poor man's 
labour. 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 193 

Natural depravity ! I, for one, decline to believe that 
the poor are, in any way, more depraved than the rich ; 
but I solemnly assert that they have less chance of 
fighting against their depravity. The cause of over- 
crowding must be sought elsewhere. 

It will be found in high rents. The East End working- 
man pays for house-room a sum out of all proportion to 
his income. From a quarter to a third of his weekly 
wage goes to his " landlord." Try to realise what that 
means. Say your income is ^400 a year. You would 
only be in the position of vast numbers of your fellow- 
citizens if for the most inadequate accommodation you 
were obliged to pay not less than ^100, and possibly as 
much as ,£130 a year. This you could do only by sub- 
letting. And that is precisely what the working-man 
does. Bonn, to whom I referred a few pages back, 
ought to be occupying the whole of his little house him- 
self. Why is he not doing so ? Because his earnings are 
only twenty-four shillings a week, and it is impossible 
for him to take eight shillings of this for rent, and live. 

Here are the actual expenses for one week of Cligall, 
who has a wife and four children : — Meat, 4s.; bread, 3^., 
grocery, $s. ; coal, is. 6d. ; vegetables, is. 6d. ; oil, 6d. ; 
furniture, is. 6d. ; draper, 6d. ; beer, is. ; wife (pocket), 
is. 6d. ; husband (pocket), is. ; rent, gs. Obviously 
something is wrong in a poor man's menage in which the 
rent equals the cost of bread, grocery and coal combined. 
Cligall is evidently living beyond his means. He will 
have to eat less bread or pay less rent. He cannot 
eat less bread without starving, so he must pay 
less rent. He may do so by refusing the young 
man with the pencil behind his ear who will call on 
Monday. For that great refusal he will be turned out. 

O 



i 9 4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

So that won't do. He is therefore reduced to two 
courses of action : he must pay less rent either by sub- 
letting or by moving into a smaller house. These are 
the only ways of escape from his predicament ; and 
whichever way he takes, he will certainly be overcrowded, 
and he and his family will suffer. He would gladly 
retain his house, which is in a respectable neighbourhood; 
but he cannot afford to do so. And be it observed that 
a premium is actually placed on his degradation ; for, if 
he loves dirt, and is content to dwell in slums, he will be 
taxed far less than if he elects to live in cleanliness 
and decency. He would naturally prefer to continue 
occupying a house all to himself; but his slender re- 
sources would break under the strain. The object of 
his landlord is to wring from him the highest possible 
rent for the poorest possible accommodation ; and his 
own object is to use the available accommodation to its 
utmost possible limit. Thus room, house, street, neigh- 
bourhood, become overcrowded ; and dirt, disease, and 
death have their fell way. High rents are the direct 
cause of overcrowding. 

And why are rents high? Obviously, because the 
demand for houses is greater than the supply. If we 
could build houses in sufficient numbers, rents would find 
their level, and everybody would be housed comfortably 
and cheaply. It is because the population is so greatly 
in excess of available house-room, that the landlord can 
ask and obtain exorbitant rents. London's millions are 
increasing by leaps and bounds, while London's house- 
building is comparatively at a standstill. If the work- 
ing-man's rent is to cease to be an intolerable burden, 
the number of houses must be enormously increased. 

What efforts are being made in this direction ? Very 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 195 

few, and those few almost wholly on wrong lines. Here 
a public body, there a private individual, are mildly exert- 
ing themselves to meet the demand ; but no adequate at- 
tempt to house the bulk of London's poor has ever yet 
been made. Take the London County Council. So far 
from lessening the housing difficulty, they have actually 
increased it. To the ingenuous minds of these gentle- 
men the problem seemed a very simple one. They 
looked at the slum areas with pitying eyes, and their 
hearts warmed to the unhappy dwellers therein. " Let 
us pull down their rookeries and build them decent 
homes," they murmured. They cleared the slum people 
out ; they razed the slum dwellings to the ground ; they 
erected in the place of them beautiful, beautiful houses. 
Then, beaming with benevolence, they said to the evicted 
ones, " See what good kind men we are ! Perhaps you 
thought us harsh when we turned you out ; but we were 
only acting for your benefit. Now come back and live 
in comfort and joy ! " But the evicted ones, who had 
meanwhile made slums for themselves elsewhere, shook 
their heads, saying, " No, thank you ! Your houses are 
high, and so are your rents. We prefer to stay where 
we are all low together. Slummy, dear benevolent 
L.C.C., but cheap ! " And so the beautiful, beautiful 
houses are occupied by clerks, doctors, architects, and 
clergymen ; the slum has become a highly respectable 
neighbourhood ; and rents have gone up all round. So 
wise ! 

Nor has private philanthropy, hysterical and watery- 
eyed, done any better. It has suffered to an incredible 
degree from short-sightedness, or, rather, from being 
unable to see more than one thing at a time ; where- 
fore, its efforts have frequently resulted in incredible 

O 2 



196 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

absurdity. For instance, in a certain congested district 
of London, within a period of four years, there were 
admitted into Poor Law institutions 3,000 persons, of 
whom only 7 per cent., or 210, belonged to that par- 
ticular district. How was that ? Because the Church 
Army and the Salvation Army were attracting potential 
paupers from all quarters, whose indigence they were so 
far from curing that they were actually accentuating it 
by providing accommodation which, in its very nature, 
could not be other than temporary. These well-meaning 
people were good enough (or bad enough) to invite all 
and sundry to come and have a roof over their heads for 
threepence, twopence, or a penny a night ; and all the 
ruffians within hail crowded gleefully into the shelters 
provided for them, and found themselves worse off 
at the end of the week than they had been at the 
beginning. 

We English are both generous and grasping, and we 
never seem to know which role to assume. With our 
right hands we diligently undo what we succeed in doing 
with our left. In the character of philanthropists we 
honestly try to house the working-classes ; in the 
character of business men we honestly try to unhouse 
them. The house-jobber is frequently a philanthropist 
of the most definite shade, liberal, open-handed, ready 
with a contribution to any deserving charity. Yet he 
makes enormous capital out of his hapless fellow- 
citizens. His method is to buy up a slum district, make 
the smallest possible number of needful repairs, and re- 
let at a shameless profit. Needless to say, in a year or 
two the district is slummier than ever ; but the house- 
jobber has made his pile, and is living in Chester 
Square. 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 197 

Or take the landowner. Who more benevolent than 
he? Who more ready to give liberally on behalf of the 
11 poor " from whom he is draining blood-money every 
day ? When his conscience is aroused, as it occasion- 
ally is in the depth of winter, he lulls it to sleep again 
with the potion of a cheque, for which he receives the 
ecstatic thanks of the clergyman who is " doing such a 
splendid work in the East End, my dear ! " 

Or the employer of labour. Does he not provide 
reading-rooms for his workers, and oleographs, and 
moral lessons? Yet he has heartlessly destroyed 
hundreds of thousands of homes without making any 
sort of provision for the homeless. Previous to the Bill 
for Amending the Housing Act, 1903, Londoners were 
frequently sufferers from evictions of this kind. A 
wealthy manufacturer wished to extend his factory. He 
could do so only by dislodging those whose sole offence 
was that they were in his way. If possession be nine- 
tenths of the law, as it generally is supposed to be, the 
possessors had the strongest legal right to remain where 
they were. But, alas ! such a right, where it existed at 
all, was merely nominal. The manufacturer had wealth 
on his side ; and, unhappily, even the " right " of posses- 
sion is powerless against the " might " of wealth. So 
the manufacturer bought up the property, evicted the 
tenants, and extended his factory. 

With what contempt did Saltlake receive my sugges- 
tion that it was his duty to house the workers rendered 
homeless by his building scheme ! 

" Business is business," said he. 

" Business seems to be roguery," said I. 

" Business is business" he repeated. 

" Business should be Christianity," I retorted. 



198 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Then there was our good friend Cammenbare, who 
contrived the wholesale destruction of a number of 
houses adjoining his property. Notice was served upon 
the tenants, some of whom found homes elsewhere ; but 
others were at their wits' ends where to go. They had 
tramped the neighbourhood for miles without success. 
Either there were no houses to be had, or those that were 
available were offered at a prohibitive rent. Meanwhile 
the work of annihilation was steadily proceeding. The 
backyards of the condemned houses had been demolished, 
together with all sanitary conveniences ; and the tenants 
had perforce turned the road into a kind of cesspool. 
The women were hysterical ; the men, dogged and 
silent. They were more like a flock of worried sheep 
than a company of human beings. After I had heard 
their pitiful story from beginning to end, I promised to do 
what I could. And I did it. Needless to explain how. 
It was something to get these poor folk a few days' 
grace ; it was much more to be able to educate public 
opinion on the matter. 

Clearly, a manufacturer who, for private gain, renders 
a number of innocent people homeless should be legally 
compelled, although he may not feel himself morally 
bound, to re-house them. Before the passing of the Act, 
respectable people, because they were poor, were liable, 
at a few days' notice, to be driven from homes endeared 
to them by long association. No accommodation was 
made for them in the neighbourhood of their work ; and 
they were forced to herd together wherever they could, 
like cattle in a pen. On the completion of the new 
building, a fresh swarm of humanity invaded the already 
overcrowded district, and rents leaped up to famine 
prices. Before Saltlake came to the East End you could 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 199 

get a four-roomed house for six-and-sixpence a week ; 
after he came, ten-and-sixpence was asked for the 
same accommodation. One fervently hopes that the 
provisions of the new Housing Bill will be loyally ob- 
served, and that it will not meet the fate of many similar 
measures by being honoured more in the breach than in 
the observance. 

Overcrowding, then, is due to high rents ; and rents 
are high because the demand for houses is in excess of 
the supply. To satisfy the demand, under existing con- 
ditions, seems hopeless. Can we reduce it ? There are 
those who think that we can ; and they suggest that we 
may stop the rush to London by artificially creating 
centres of activity elsewhere. They draw a picture of 
a rural population, busy and intelligent, who are contented 
to pass their days " far from the madding crowd's 
ignoble strife." The idea is pretty enough, but it is only 
an idea ; it cannot be reproduced in real life. A hun- 
dred years ago, men lived in villages ; to-day they live in 
cities. We may deprecate the fact ; we cannot alter it. 
Its source lies in the deep places of our being. In order 
that we may enjoy the society of our fellows, we are 
willing to forego nature's most precious gifts — prosperity, 
peace, a painless old age. These, although indeed great 
blessings, we rightly consider worthless when compared 
with the doing and daring of a life lived cheek by jowl, 
shoulder to shoulder, with humanity in its millions. It 
is true that the tide of life, as it flows citywards, bears 
with it much that is useless and vicious ; but this is the 
stern price we must pay for a great privilege. We brave 
the company of the lowest in order that we may enjoy 
the company of the highest. 

Nor is this tendency merely sentimental. Our com- 



200 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

mercial prosperity depends upon our ability to compete 
with other countries. This we can only do if we yield 
to the demand for economical division of labour ; and 
division of labour is possible only where men congre- 
gate in large numbers. So out of the eater comes forth 
meat, and out of the curse comes forth blessing. The 
people crowd into the cities, and in the crowded cities 
the continuance of our national greatness is assured. 

In spite of the schemes without number for the 
solution of the housing problem, the problem is still 
with us, a Sphinx's riddle of disheartening complexity. 
Where shall we look for a satisfactory answer ? Not 
to the making of slums by the clearing of slum areas. 
Not to the creation of overcrowding by the erection ot 
temporary shelters. Not to the bribing of the worker 
with our left hand, while we bleed him with our right. 
Not to the reduction of the number of would-be tenants. 
Municipal experiments are hopeless. Philanthropical 
experiments are hopeless. The on-rushing multitude 
has nowhere to lay its million heads, and we grow 
hysterical at the sight. " Where shall we look for our 
salvation ? " we cry. And the only answer is, " To the 
land." 

" Ah, yes ! to the land ! " we say. " Of course ! 
What more simple ? Let us buy land where it is nice 
and cheap. There, in the near country, lies any quantity 
of it. We will buy square miles of it, we will ; and 
we'll run trams and trains to it, we will ; and our poor 
dear working people shall be housed at last ! " 

What a pity it is that such a charming scheme should 
be so useless ! And why useless ? Because cheap land 
is dear land the moment anybody wants it ; only land 
that nobody wants is cheap. The effect of purchasing 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 201 

land for building purposes on the outskirts of our cities 
would be to raise the value, not only of all the land in 
the neighbourhood of the purchase, but also of all the 
land in the neighbourhood of the trains and trams 
running to it. So the last state of us would be worse 
than the first. Not thus will the land solve the housing 
problem. 

We must go down to the very origin of things, and 
ask, " Whose is the land ? How should it be used ? " 
And I believe the answers to those two questions 
will be found to be : First, the land is the property 
of the whole nation, and not that of individuals, many 
or few ; and, secondly, the land must be used for 
the benefit of the whole nation, and not for that of 
individuals, many or few. There are certain things, 
such as air and light, which, because they are essential 
to life, belong to mankind by natural right, and 
are at the disposal of all who live. No one is allowed 
to appropriate them and lease them for gain. So, 
one day, it ought to be — so, one day, it shall be — with 
land. Land, being essential to life, should be at the 
disposal, under proper regulation, of all who live ; and 
it ought to be just as impossible to sell land as it is, 
happily, impossible to sell air and light. But it is not 
impossible to sell land, as we know too well ; and the 
unholy traffic goes on apace, the law aiding and abetting. 
So long as the law remains as it is, so long will the 
philanthropist be deterred from building houses for the 
poor, and so long will the speculating landowner find it 
to his advantage to delay building until it suits his 
purpose. The true solution of the housing problem, as 
of all human problems whatsoever, is to put to use, to 
the highest possible use, everything that we possess. 



202 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

We shall escape so long as we use to the best of our 
ability, even though that best be imperfect ; but how 
shall we escape if we neglect ? 

" But surely," interrupts the reader, " there is nothing 
to neglect ; every available square foot of land, at least 
in the London area, either is already covered with 
houses, or is in process of being covered." 

Not so. There are, at this moment, thousands of acres 
lying idle. Why is this land not built upon ? The 
answer is, that it is too dear. Think of that. The 
rich man holds these precious acres, which would 
bring health and comfort to those thousand-thousand 
Londoners who need to be decently housed. To the 
cry of the thousand-thousand the rich man turns a deaf 
ear. Like the dog in the manger, he cannot enjoy the 
land himself, and he will not let anyone else enjoy it. 
The law gives him every encouragement to behave in this 
unseemly fashion, recognising two kinds of land : that 
which is built upon, and that which is not built upon. 
Land which is built upon is assessed at its building 
value, which is from £40 to ^50 per acre ; land which 
is not built upon is assessed at its agricultural value, 
namely, £3 to £5 per acre. It is therefore to the 
interest of the owner, other things being equal, to let 
the land alone until its price rises. The longer he holds 
it, the more valuable it becomes ; and its value is 
enhanced, not because he does anything to make it so, 
but because the workers in its neighbourhood do every- 
thing to make it so. He is sure to reap in due 
season ; and he will reap, not according to his own 
sowing, but according to that of other people. If his 
price is not accepted to-day, it will be accepted to- 
morrow, or next month, or a year hence, or ten years 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 203 

hence. He can afford to wait until that day when, in 
answer to the cry of the worker for a roof over his head, the 
required price will be forthcoming. In a terribly literal 
sense, other men have laboured, and he has entered into 
their labours ; and he actually withholds the land from 
the people who have made it valuable, and because they 
have made it valuable. 

The law must be altered. In what direction? In 
the direction of limiting the individual's and increasing 
the State's power over the land. This limitation on the 
one hand, and increase on the other, must go on until 
the eighty million acres of land in Great Britain belong 
to the forty million dwellers on that land. This, the 
nationalisation of the land, should be the objective of 
every true reformer ; and, however much it may be 
delayed, it should never be lost sight of. One need not 
be a prophet to foretell that this great reform will come 
as surely as to-morrow's sun will rise. But it may be 
a long time in coming. Meanwhile, what practical effort 
can be made in the direction of limiting the individual's 
power over the land, and so releasing it for the use of 
the community? The answer is simplicity itself: the 
cause of overcrowding being the rating of unoccupied 
land at its agricultural and not at its building value, the 
cure of overcrowding will be found in rating unoccupied 
land at its building and not at its agricultural value. 
The State must insist that the landlord bear his share 
of the taxation. At present he escapes with the merest 
travesty of taxation, no matter how his land has increased 
in value without any effort on his part ; while the 
workers, whose diligence has raided the price of his 
land, have to bear an intolerable burden. To leave 
unoccupied land practically untaxed, as the law permits 



2o 4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

it to be at present, is to endow with a great privilege 
the already privileged, and to saddle with a heavy- 
burden the already overburdened. Since money must 
come from somewhere, obviously if it does not come 
from the rich, it must come from the poor ; so that the 
poor are not only the effective instruments of the in- 
creased value of land, but are taxed because they are. 
Economically it would have been better for them had 
they not been industrious, but had left the land in its 
primitive condition. 

For example, thirty years ago, a wealthy speculator 
named Alick Shinder bought a piece of land in the 
East End for which he paid £200 an acre. This land 
is now in the midst of a working population, whose 
industry has raised its value to £700 an acre. For the 
sake of argument we will suppose that Shinder may 
lawfully claim the ^"500 increment ; although, as a 
matter of fact, the sum represents not his work but that 
of other people. Let him have his ^"700 per acre, how- 
ever ; but let the State, as a matter of simple justice, 
rate him on the basis of £700 per acre, and not, as at 
present, on the basis of £200. That is all that is asked ; 
and, simple though it appears, it would be sufficient to 
change the whole of the working-man's outlook. At 
present he is incredibly hampered, and not least by his 
self-styled friends. These well-meaning persons make 
great efforts to get the working-man's wages raised, — 
and allow the increment to drop into the landlord's 
pocket. They are eloquent in their advocacy of free 
trade, — and leave the source of all trade, the land, 
under the thumb of the speculator. Meanwhile, their 
protege is attempting the impossible. He gallantly runs 
the race that is set before him ; but the faster he runs, 



THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOF-TREE 205 

the heavier he is handicapped. He works with a will, 
remembering the rest that follows labour ; but the 
harder he works, the less chance has he of rest. He 
scrapes and saves for the days of weakness that are 
coming ; but the more he earns, the more he is mulcted 
of his earnings. 

If we would raise the working-man, we must house 
him ; and we shall never succeed in housing him until 
we have given the authorities power to say to the 
landlord — 

" Your land is wanted by the community. You may 
do two things with it, but not a third. You may build 
on it ; you may let us build on it ; but you shall not 
leave it alone!' 



CHAPTER IX 

SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 

District visiting is not what it used to be. The 
amiable and incapable young person, who fluttered from 
door to door with a basket of material food in one hand 
and a bundle of spiritual food in the other, is gone for 
ever. Her place has been taken by the "worker." 
That name has its disadvantages. Young Darwin 
waylaid me one Monday, smiling all over his body. 

" I've told Jim about your Workers' Meeting," he 
said. 

" Who is Jim ? " I asked. 

" My big brother. 'E's a worker, if you like." 

" Where does he work ? " 

" Millwall Dock. Earns twenty-four bob a week, Jim 
does." 

" But, my dear boy," I murmured faintly, remembering 
my wife and the drawing-room carpet, " the meeting is 
for parish helpers — district visitors, Sunday School 
teachers, and so on." 

Young Darwin regarded me with ill-concealed con- 
tempt : " Parish 'elpers ? Wy, you said it was for 
workers!' 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 207 

But there are other objections to the modern 
" worker n much more serious than her name. She is 
extremely up-to-date ; she is very conscientious ; she is 
careful to the point of cunning ; she is diplomatic to 
the point of duplicity ; yet she is not a success. She 
lacks love. 

Tact can do much ; love can do all. To say the 
exact thing at the exact moment ; to smile when irri- 
tated ; to speak sweetly when angry ; to whittle down 
strong condemnation into faint praise : so much tact 
can accomplish, and does. But it is a terribly dangerous 
weapon for the use of any but the wisest. In the East 
End it has wrought an inconceivable amount of mischief, 
destroying the possibility of free intercourse, clouding 
with suspicion the most hopeful enterprises, casting up 
walls of cold granite between souls which should have 
enjoyed happy communion, and teaching the poor to 
cover their raging wrath with a wretched assumption of 
meekness. 

What the East End wants is love ; what the East 
End is ready to give, in return, is love. People upon 
whom argument, moral suasion, even bribery, are abso- 
lutely lost, who are totally unimpressed by cautious 
cleverness or studied openness, are amenable to this 
mysterious force. Love is the reward of those who 
never forget the sufferings of the poor although they 
may forget their sins, and who never allow tact to blunt 
the edge of their sympathy, or cowardice their sense of 
justice. To inspire reverence in the irreverent, tender- 
ness in the hardened, enthusiasm in the indifferent, 
trust in the faithless, love in the loveless, is the business 
of love, and of love alone. 

The up-to-date worker has somehow fallen flat. Her 



208 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

condescension is so condescending. She can never 
forget herself. She is everlastingly remembering what 
is due to her position. She is always very religious, yet 
she is not religious enough. She makes long prayers ; 
yet she would as little think of using the word " God " 
or " Christ " in her visits among the poor as she would 
of using that of " Zeus " or " Aphrodite." These are 
for the church, not for the home ; for the confessional, 
not for the front parlour. She will talk glibly of the 
value of thrift, of fresh air, of a sound education ; but 
the watchwords of religion, " salvation," " redemption," 
" fatherhood," those battle-cries of the soul which have 
plucked many a brand from the burning, are ignored by 
her. This may be due in part to constitutional shyness, 
to the fear of obtruding sacred things into trivial con- 
versation ; but I cannot help thinking that it arises 
almost wholly from the professional view the up-to-date 
worker takes of her work. She can organise a demon- 
stration, run a " treat " or a tea-meeting, sit for hours 
on boards, committees and sub-committees ; but she 
shrinks from admitting the canaille to a share of her 
loftiest emotions, and is devoutly thankful that in her 
Father's house are many mansions. 

Miss Granville's relations, as Mrs. Trotters once con- 
fidentially informed me, were " upper." One of her 
uncles, it seems, was a peer; another, an M.P. Her 
cousin had been a Lord Mayor. She herself was a holy 
woman, much given to good works ; but her family 
was her weakness. Some one once addressed her as 
Miss Granvile, omitting an " 1," and thus innocently 
suggesting a connection with the well-known sausage- 
makers. The lady's saintly face was distorted with 
fury ; and she punished herself for her unseemly anger 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 209 

by limiting herself to two crusts for her daily dinner 
duri ng the whole of Lent. 

Yet, in her pitifully narrow way, Miss Granville's 
ambition was to be loved by the poor. Try as she 
might, however, she could not win their affection. The 
reason was not far to seek : she felt herself to be among 
them, but not of them ; and they, for their part, were 
acutely conscious of the distinction. She could be 
charming to them because she supposed herself to be 
separated from them by an impassable social gulf; but 
to those whom she suspected of being on an equality 
with herself, or of claiming to be, she could be as cutting 
as the east wind. 

We gave a party, one evening, to the poorest of our 
folk — it was, of course, long before we came to Millwall — 
and Miss Granville was invited " to meet a few friends." 
Instantly all her family pride rose up in arms. The 
thought of the peer, the M.P., and the Lord Mayor 
was too much for her. She sent a polite but decided 
refusal. We spent a charming evening in our drawing- 
room, our dear people thoroughly enjoying themselves ; 
and when we broke up, we felt we had got nearer to 
each other than ever before. 

11 So sorry you couldn't come yesterday, ,, observed 
my wife, on meeting the great lady next day. 

" I was otherwise engaged," was the stiff reply. 

" A pity ! I wanted to introduce you. The poor 
dears had such a happy time. They looked so nice in 
their best bibs and tuckers." 

Miss Granville's pale face flushed crimson. There was 
a moment of utter bewilderment ; then, suddenly, she 
turned ashy pale, and, forgetful of all discretion, stam- 
mered — 

P 



210 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" I thought it was a party of your own friends." 

" So it was/' said my wife. 

Miss Granville imagined that, in some mysterious 
fashion, her destiny was of a different kind from that of 
the people among whom she " worked." She had not 
learnt to identify herself, for weal or woe, with her poorer 
brothers and sisters. 

An inexhaustible belief in the possibilities of every 
human soul is of the very essence of Christianity. For 
the worker, all other qualities put together are of less 
importance. In every man, however low he may have 
sunk, there is an element of goodness, some remnant of 
that Divine Image after whose likeness he was fashioned, 
and into whose likeness he shall one day be restored. 
The worker can fall into no more fatal error than to 
suppose that the abandoned wretch, grovelling in the 
swine's trough of his passions, is capable of reformation 
only up to a certain point. Yet that is precisely the kind 
of mistake into which the worker is apt to fall. She 
regards it as her bounden duty to persuade the 
" masses " to accept the clubs, drills, and dances pro- 
vided for them, these being the recognised means of 
" getting hold " of them. So far she is right. To expel 
the devil of mischief by creating harmless interests, to 
drive dull care away by uproarious gaiety, is good as 
far as it goes. But it does not go far enough. I was 
lamenting to another worker of the Granville type the 
difficulty of getting the lowest classes in touch with 
religion. " I wish we could somehow induce them to 
come to church/' I said, " and so lead them up gradually 
to Confirmation and Communion." 

Church ! Confirmation ! ! Communion ! ! ! gasped 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 211 

the worker. " Oh dear, no ! I don't agree with you at 
all. They are totally unfit for such things." 

She lacked imagination, you see ; and people who 
lack imagination should not be trusted to work among 
the poor. Yet they abound. I remember there was a 
man on one of the East End committees on which I 
used to serve, who was of a light-hearted disposition, and 
would occasionally venture a remark of an unbusiness- 
like character. Curious it was to observe the freezing 
expression on the women's faces. To laugh would have 
been unprofessional, so laughter was barred, and in its 
place appeared a fearful expression of aloofness, or an 
icily forbidding smile, such as one would humour a 
lunatic with. Now a joke, the rougher the better, 
appeals to the East-ender when more solid reasoning 
ignominiously fails. Therefore, it is important that the 
philanthropist should season his example, no less than 
his precept, with wit. Under the most favourable 
circumstances he will succeed in realising but a small 
proportion of his dreams for the betterment of the 
people ; without a plentiful supply of Attic salt he will 
assuredly fail altogether. When the worker has a 
tongue, her sphere of mischief is enormous ; when, in 
addition, her conscience is placed in the keeping of her 
confessor, it is practically unlimited ; and when to these 
qualifications she adds incurable ignorance, and there- 
fore indomitable vanity, she is like to strike the stars. 

At present the only qualification an East End worker 
need possess is inability to be anything else. This is 
wrong. Since the East-ender is undeveloped, it is of 
the utmost importance to allow none but the highly 
developed to have dealings with him. To permit any- 

P 2 



212 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

one, irrespective of character, education, or ability, to 
" work among the poor," which in plain English means 
to work disaster, is in the highest degree criminal. 
Incompetence in every other department of life is no 
longer the only certificate required of the schoolmaster ; 
and even doctors must now know something of the art 
of healing. Yet, so far are we from realising the pro- 
found importance of the work of raising the M masses," 
that we cheerfully commit this all but impossible task to 
quite impossible people ; and the ranks of the " workers " 
are filled to overflowing with an inglorious company ot 
meddlers and muddlers. 

A word on the Women's Settlement. No man 
has more cause than I to be grateful to individual 
Settlement workers. I shall never forget the unaffected 
generosity of Miss Hilda Barry (now Mrs. Reginald 
Fremantle), herself a pioneer on Settlement lines. Yet 
few men, I imagine, have less belief in the Settle- 
ment ideal. May I be permitted, without prejudice, to 
enumerate, as they occur to me, my main objections. To 
begin with, it is a capital error to house a Settlement 
in a huge building. Small dwellings, more nearly 
corresponding to those of the poor, would be infinitely 
more appropriate. Better still would it be for ladies 
to board and lodge together in couples. It is true that 
the largeness and system of a Settlement are in touch 
with this age of bigness and organisation ; it is also 
true that such a place appears to strike at individualism 
in a very real fashion ; but it is equally true that a big 
Settlement unnecessarily punctuates the division between 
rich and poor, and is worse, if anything, than a big 
vicarage. 

Then, as to the claim of independence. The position 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 213 

in which the Settlement places well-meaning women is 
little short of ludicrous. Coming, for the most part, 
from villages where the parochial system is everything, 
they are obliged to learn that, from the Settlement 
point of view, the parochial system is nothing. Should 
they go to their parish church, they like it to be 
distinctly understood that they do so, not as parishioners, 
but as independent workers ; and, in order to emphasise 
this attitude of theirs, they as often as not dispense 
their patronage elsewhere. Indeed, they are told off for 
duty in the various parishes, much as soldiers might be ; 
and they are as rigid in obedience to their superior as 
they are detached in their relation to their parish clergy. 
Once upon a time — and I mention the incident merely 
to illustrate my point, and in no spirit of resentment — a 
Settlement lady brought me a candidate for confirmation. 
I enrolled the girl a member of my class, put her through 
a thorough course of instruction, presented her to the 
Bishop, got her confirmed, and was rewarded by seeing 
her dragged off to another parish to make her first Com- 
munion ! A straw will show which way the stream flows. 
The Women's Settlement aims at being independent, 
and succeeds in being objectionable. Its residents 
imagine themselves free lances, and insist on their house 
being regarded as private. Neither contention is admis- 
sible. No churchwoman can possibly be a free lance so 
long as the parish exists ; and no Settlement, which in 
its very nature is a public house, can claim the privileges 
of a private one. For all I know, the parish ideal may 
turn out to be wrong, and the Settlement ideal right ; 
but I am quite convinced that both cannot be right, and 
that the Tightness of the one involves the wrongness of 
the other. The Settlement ideal is as opposed to the 



2i 4 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

parochial ideal as minus to plus ; and, therefore, as long 
as the parochial ideal is concretely represented in our 
midst, I conceive it to be my duty to support it and not 
its opposite. Nor is there, so far as I can see, any pos- 
sibility of real union. The Settlement cannot be grafted 
on to the parish unless it shares the life of the parish ; 
and it cannot share the life of the parish in any true 
sense, because it is independent. Things so antagonistic 
may be dovetailed, but not grafted. The Settlement is 
virtually a parish in itself, its head being the parish 
priestess. It owes no allegiance beyond its four walls. 
It is an up-to-date nunnery, and will probably share the 
fate of the mediaeval monasteries. Its continued exist- 
ence is impossible in any parish where Churchmen are 
loyal to their head ; where, for any reason, they are other- 
wise, it will live ; but its life will ultimately be the 
death of the parish. There is no reason, however, why 
the Settlement theory should not be applied beneficently 
in practice. Let men and women, boys and girls, who 
feel the call, come to live in the East End, in comfort 
but not in luxury, in families and not in celibacy ; let 
them come swept clean of mouldy traditions respecting 
the "classes" and the "masses" ; let them come imbued 
through and through with the sense of humanity's claim 
on humanity ; let them come to learn rather than to 
teach ; let them come to live the common life in an un- 
common manner ; and the redemption of the East End 
will prove no impossible dream. 

The Church parson — to say nothing of Nonconformist 
ministers of many denominations — is ready for them, 
ready to use them in every conceivable way. He is no 
longer merely a gentleman ; he is priest and pastor, 
although remnants of the old " gentlemanly " tradition 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 215 

still linger. Mrs. Shopan, who occasionally comes to me 
for counsel and comfort, never allows me to forget that 
fact, for she invariably excuses herself for " troubling me " 
in these identical terms: " I come to you, Mr. Free, as a 
Catholic goes to his priest." Poor soul ! Little does she 
guess how that pitiful apology stabs. It is a terrible in- 
dictment of our much-vaunted Protestantism, when you 
think of it, sweeping us back to the dark ages of the 
eighteenth century. 

But most things have changed in a hundred years, 
and with them, as I say, the parson. In the East End 
he is at his best. One has nothing but praise for his 
self-denying and devoted work. The way in which he 
maintains a cheerful exterior amid all the distressing 
and depressing conditions of his labour is beyond all 
praise. His life is terribly exacting ; his difficulties are, 
in very deed, well-nigh overwhelming. 

Is it surprising that the flesh in him sometimes rebels ? 
From time to time, terrible stories reach us of indolence, 
drunkenness, and still worse failings on the part of some 
East End clergymen. What is the remedy for this 
state of things ? The answer is, Shorter incumbencies. 
Priests of piety and ability are left in the East End for 
twenty, thirty, even for forty years. A man is not a 
machine. In spite of — nay, in consequence of — the stern 
discipline of his life, the East End parson has his bursts 
of uncontrollable longing. Let him clip the feathers of 
his fancy as he will, they are always growing again, and 
at inopportune moments are apt to snatch him from his 
sordid surroundings and plunge him into the vortex of 
the unknown. Little wonder if he returns from some of 
these involuntary excursions with his white wings soiled. 
The stupidity of leaving a man for the whole of his life 



216 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

in a parish where he has no one to chat to, no one to call 
on, no elevating influence of any kind to break the dull 
monotony of his life, is unpardonable ; and until those 
responsible make some move in the direction of a freer 
shuffling of livings, so that one section of men shall not 
have all the plums, while another has all the stones, we 
may expect to continue to be shocked by serious defec- 
tions from the very strait and narrow way of East End 
clerical life. 

Overwhelming, I say, is the slum parson's work. The 
statement may appear exaggerated to those who are 
ignorant of the conditions under which such work is 
done. Even people who ought to know better have the 
most limited views of the matter. Again and again I 
have been asked, with annoying naivete, " But what do 
you do ? There are your sermons on Sundays, of 
course ; but the rest of the week you have to yourself, 
haven't you ? " To the East End parson who recognises 
his duty, every waking moment, and many moments 
that should be given to sleep, are devoted to the con- 
sideration of the best methods of fulfilling it. He must 
literally be all things to all men. In my own work, for 
instance — and I quote it because I know more about it 
than about that of any other man — it has been necessary 
for me to officiate at all Communions, baptisms, and 
churchings ; to preach and pray in the street as well as 
in the church ; to visit the sick and the whole ; to 
superintend the Sunday School ; to train a choir, drill a 
brigade, run a men's club, run a lads' club, run all sorts 
of excursions, address men and boys, address women, 
keep church accounts, play the piano, recite Sims, sing a 
comic song, eject disturbers of the peace, settle quarrels, 
accept the advice of friendly enemies, and keep the 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 217 

financial pot boiling. And, lest the reader should still 
be sceptical, here are particulars of two of my working 
days. Few East End clergymen do less, I imagine, 
while many do a great deal more. I need scarcely add, 
perhaps, that the record is not imaginary : it is actual 
fact from beginning to end. 

First Day. — 8.20 a.m., breakfast ; 9, investigate, as 
school manager, certain suggested improvements ; 9.30, 
examine, with inspector, houses in which draining is re- 
ported defective ; 10, morning prayer in church ; 10.30, 
call on sick woman; 11 to 1, interviews; 1 p.m., 
luncheon ; 2, walk a mile and a half to Poplar ; 3 to 5, 
take chair at a committee meeting ; 5, walk home ; 6, 
evening prayer in church ; 7, dinner ; 7.45, churchings ; 
8, baptisms ; 8.30, teachers' instruction ; 9, lay helpers' 
business meeting. 

Second Day. — 8 a.m., morning prayer in church ; 8.30, 
breakfast; 10 to 11.30, interviews; 11.30, religious 
instruction in school; 12, interviews; 1, luncheon; 2, 
visits ; 3.20, address mothers' meeting ; 4, interviews and 
visits ; 6, meeting with Sunday School superintendents ; 
6.30, dinner ; 7.30, business meeting ; 8, visit dying man ; 
8.30, lecture ; 9.30, interviews. 

Let the reader fill in the interstices of such days with 
the hundred-and-one duties, both public and private, 
inseparable from the parson's life — callers who must be 
seen, letters that must be written, news that must be 
digested, courtesies that must be exchanged, knotty 
points that must be thought out : minor matters all, but 
matters, nevertheless, which will brook no delay — and he 
will not go far wrong in concluding that the East End 
parson's life is not a lazy one. 

Wonder is sometimes expressed that the parson col- 
lapses after ten or fifteen years' service. The reason is 



2i 8 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

not far to seek. He is for ever pouring forth the best 
that is in him, well aware that there is none to whom he 
can look to fill the drained cisterns of his soul. He is 
subjected to the severest censure if he leaves undone any 
of the multitudinous things he ought to have done, or 
ventures to do in any wise the things he ought not to 
have done. Worse than all, his best helpers are con- 
stantly migrating, he himself, with a topsy-turvydom 
suggestive of one of Mr. Gilbert's plays, being the un- 
willing instrument in the thinning of his congregation 
and the denuding of his parish ; for his humanity com- 
pels him to do his best to remove from the sorrows and 
temptations of the East End those whose natural 
faculties promise a happier career elsewhere. 

Earnest efforts, then, by workers lay and clerical, good, 
bad, and indifferent, are being made to reform the 
East End. With what success ? I suppose that the 
most optimistic of us will scarcely maintain that the 
efforts put forth are accomplishing what might legiti- 
mately be expected of them. That something is being 
done towards the removing of the obloquy of past 
neglect, no one will deny ; but that that something is of 
very great moment, I imagine few would insist. The 
most indifferent student of the East End cannot be 
without a suspicion of " something rotten in the state 
of Denmark." As a matter of fact, the efforts of 
philanthropy are out of all proportion to its results. In 
proof of our success, we point to our clubs for both 
sexes and all ages, to our Sunday Schools, to our social 
functions. But, before giving way to unlimited joy, 
there are certain questions which we are in duty bound 
to ask ourselves, such as, What becomes of our boys 
and girls when they pass into the world ? Do they hold 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 219 

to, or do they desert, the Faith in which they have been 
reared ? What proportion of the members of our clubs 
are in living connection with religion ? How much of 
our parochial machinery is merely mechanical ? how 
much, material means to spiritual ends ? It ill becomes 
us to boast so much. The net result of our restless energy 
will be found in our empty churches and in almost 
universal indifference to religion. Let us be frank in 
the matter. We have failed, and ignominiously failed, 
to make the working people of the East End either God- 
fearing or God-loving. We have piped unto them, and 
they have not danced ; we have mourned unto them, 
and they have not lamented. 

It is not easy to determine at whose door to lay this 
gigantic failure. It seems pretty clear, however, that a 
large share of responsibility rests with the Church of 
England. Had she done her duty in the past, much of 
the prevailing indifference might have been prevented. 
But she repeated for the millionth time the story of the 
man in possession. Others had laboured, and she had 
entered into their labours ; and all was so safe and 
prosperous that she was tempted to sing her little 
death-song, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for 
many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry/' 
Too assured of the supremacy gained for her by the 
self-sacrifice of many generations, she grew presump- 
tuous, keeping careless watch over her household ; and 
by her laxity she drove the more zealous and less 
logical of her children from the security of her feeding- 
places to the liberty and danger of new pastures, and 
the less zealous and more logical to the wilderness where 
there were no pastures at all. 

To the negligence of the Church of England, and to 



22o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

the indifference on the one hand and the sectarianism 
on the other engendered by it, I attribute the chief blame 
for the East-ender's unhappy lot. Had the Church 
been true to her mission, she never would have allowed 
herself to be weakened by lazy acquiescence or violent 
disruption ; but, in order to offer a solid phalanx to the 
common enemy, she would have grappled to her with 
hooks of steel all elements of good of whatsoever kind. 
In her pride of purse and power she has refused to 
mother her own children, and now her struggle for the 
merest existence has changed the milk of her human 
kindness into the gall of bitterness. 

Indifference and sectarianism ! It is the indifference 
of the East-ender that makes him appear ungrateful. 
One of the commonest remarks of friends who interest 
themselves in our work is, " How very grateful the people 
must be to you ! " Must they ? Those who live in their 
midst could tell a different story. I knew a lady who 
toiled among a number of women for nine years. On 
her retirement these women made a collection, and 
bought her a two-and-sixpenny work-box ! That is to 
say, they valued her services at the rate of threepence 
farthing a year. 

Another worker had a still more curious experience. 
After several years of strenuous labour, he resigned ; 
and some of the men with whom he had been closely 
associated put their heads together and resolved to give 
him a present. To this end they decided on a subscrip- 
tion of three shillings. I was astonished and delighted. 
It was the most generous thing I had come across 
during my East End experience. I began to blame my- 
self for over-hasty judgment. But my ardour was to 
receive a cold douche. When I inquired what the 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 221 

present was to be, I got this amazing answer — "Well, 
you see, we've reckoned it up, and we can have a jolly 
day for three shillings a head, and Mr. Bliss shall go 
for nothing ! " 

But Mrs. Heel's notion of speeding the parting guest 
was still more original. A group of women were dis- 
cussing the approaching separation. " If he's got to 
go, he's got to go, and there's an end of it," said Mrs. 
Heel, philosophically ; " but wot I say is, that I've no- 
think wotever agin 'im, and if he 'as a trifle for me to 
remember 'im by, I ain't the woman to refuse it." 

Whence the indifference that betrays itself in such 
ingratitude ? Well, the philanthropical worker in the 
East End is looked upon merely as a " dispenser of 
help," and, in the East-ender's vernacular, "help" means 
cash or its equivalent. One has no emotions of 
tenderness towards a money-bag ; and when the worker 
is regarded merely as a channel for the conveyance of 
" charity," he must not expect gratitude. I have been 
summoned to the bedside of many a sick person in 
Millwall ; but the number of occasions on which I have 
been summoned for the purpose of giving spiritual help 
could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The 
" help " desired has invariably been beef-tea and brandy. 
In face even of such facts as these, however, we must not 
be hasty in our judgment. The lot of our brothers and 
sisters is so hard, their outlook is so limited, the pressure 
of mere existence is so exacting, that they have no time 
to think of anything but food. And if we workers 
represent to them the comfort of the good things with 
which in the Magnificat we are told that God shall fill 
the hungry, we need not be unduly concerned, I think, 
that our preaching and our praying fall so flat. 



222 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

For, in spite of the ever-increasing number of people 
who seem anxious to discredit the poverty of the East 
End, the East End is poor with a poverty which 
possesses none of the fascinating glamour of the trans- 
pontine melodrama about it, but is brutally naked and 
repulsive ; a poverty of empty stomachs and gnawing 
pain, of mortal despair daily conquered by ever-living, 
ever-springing hope. 

Let the following epistles speak for themselves. They 
are all appeals for "help" of the kind we have been 
considering, and are reproduced word for word and letter 
for letter. The first is from Stella : — 

" plea Sir i write to ask you if you could help me a 
little as Mr prince as been ill before Christmas but it 
not throue drink that i ask for Any think this time it 
illness he as had to go to the hospitale and he as got 
work when he is able to go to it and i have had to part 
with Every think to pay rent and get a bite for the 
children i write now becous i have not a bit a bread to 
give the Children Mr Prince as gon to try an do a little 
today Mrs. PRINCE." 

Here is one from a husband — a great rarity ; but I 
gather that the wife was too ill to do the dirty work 
herself: — 

" Dear Sir, 

riting these few lines to you to let you know that 
Mr. Mountain could not start me yesterday because he 
his slack so he took my name and Adress Dear Sir 
I should be verry much Oblige iff you could give my wife 
one or two tickets for some food we have not got any 
food in the house I am verry Sorry that I can not 
come my self because I am cleaning up the place for 
my Wife. Good by." 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 223 

Terror of the landlord bulks largely in these letters, 
as the following examples will show : — 

" Mr. Free Mr Blinker as start this morning thank 
god but i had a Letter from the Land Lord to say if not 
the Weeks rent when Collector Call to day between 3 
and 4 to prevent further proceedings but i cant give 
him Eny think till Saturday as Mr. Blinker wont get it 
till then it will be 2 Week on Monday due but what 
make him so sharp i is as soon as he Can get you out he 
does the place up and put 1/6 moor on than are 4/6 
down now. 

pleas Mr. Free are they to Come down for The Soup 

Mrs. Blinker." 

" pleas 

Mr Free i am sorry to have to ask you again 
Mr Gropp as not do a day work now 3 Weeks to morrow 
i did a little last week and hope to do a little this week 
i was going to ask you if you Could lend me 4/ till 
Saturday for the Landlord to night to save him sending 
the Brokers in i dont whant to go to the Workhouse if 
i can help it he will be heare about eaight to night." 

When sickness creeps in, the East-ender's lot is sad 
indeed : 

" To The Reaverant 

Mr Free please could you oblige me with a little 
coal or milk as I have had my son ill for a fortnight 
with dipferior and it as cost me a Lot for fireing and milk 
having to fire on. Very sorry to Trouble you. 

Mrs. Worcester." 

" Dear Sur could you oblige Mrs. Stiver With a 
little coles as i have got my husbent Laid up this Last 
Week and i have got to keep too fire going if you could 
i shuld Be very much oblige to you Mrs. Stiver, very 
sorry to trouble you Yours to oblige." 



224 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

The East End mother does the begging, as I said ; 
but it is for her children, not for herself, she pleads : 

" Dear Sur 

I am very sorry to trouble you again for a little 
help as my husband as done no work for 5 weeks I 
cant abar to see to see the children hungry I hope I 
wont hab to drouble you again as it is very much 
against me to asked for anything but I am forst to. 

Mrs. STREMSEN." 

" pies Mister fee chould you help me With a little 
has Mister hart hant din no Work this Week and i 
hant got no fard and no faring for my little shildren — 
i ham very sorry to trouble you from Mises Hart." 

Can we wonder that these people are indifferent, 
when the wolf is howling incessantly at the door? Is 
it surprising that they are ready to be all things to all 
men, that they may by all means get something ? Can 
we conscientiously condemn their hypocritical acceptance 
of our spiritual ministrations in view of the tickets for 
grocery that are to follow ? 

Nevertheless, the material interpretation of that little 
word " help " is at times very hard to bear. There was 
Happy Clive. At ten years of age that child was a 
confirmed kleptomaniac. When everybody had given 
her up as hopeless, I took her in hand, invoking the 
combined powers of kindness and firmness. Every 
Tuesday at four she came to me, and I asked her three 
questions : " Have you lied since last week ? " " Have 
you stolen anything ? " " Have you asked God to keep 
you truthful and honest ? " More often than not, after 
denial or elaborate equivocation, she had to acknowledge 
a slip or two. Then followed reasoning, exhortation, and 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 225 

prayer. It was tedious work, but I struggled on ; 
and I believe I was instrumental in saving Happy from 
a House of Correction, which in all likelihood would 
have hardened her into a professional criminal. Well, 
one day Mrs. Clive met my wife and began " laying 
off" about the sins of the clergy in general, and of 
myself in particular. 

" But, really," Mrs. Free expostulated, " you ought to 
be the very last person to complain, seeing what a great 
deal of help my husband has given your little girl." 

" 'Elp ? " screeched Mrs. Clive. " Wot 'elp ? 'E ain't 
'elped no child of mine, as / know of." 

I But, surely, you remember how he took Happy in 
hand and influenced her for good, and " 

II Oh, thet ! " cried Mrs. Clive, with unconcealed relief; 
" I thought as you meant he give her somethink." 

It was Mrs. Crusty, whose peculiar notions on matri- 
mony I have related elsewhere, who left for a distant 
parish with the lofty remark, " You may say so. I'm glad 
enough to go. Not as I've got anything agin Mr. Free ; 
but " — with a sage wag of the head — " there ain't much 
to be got out of 'imP 

From the East-ender's point of view, the parson is a 
creature to be squeezed, and is of some use until he is 
squeezed dry. A group of women were chatting at the 
corner of Cahir Street one afternoon. 

" Well, and what are you good folks gossiping about ? " 
said I, cheerily. 

A sour-faced stranger answered, with evident inten- 
tion — 

"I was telling 'em wot a lot of 'elp our church gives 
us? 

Six of our women seceded from us at one fell 

Q 



226 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

swoop ; not because they doubted the validity of our 
orders or the reality of our sacraments, but because, by 
virtue of the efforts of an enterprising lady in the 
neighbourhood, they could get tea, once a week at least, 
for nothing. Mrs. Boughton was exceedingly frank in 
the matter. " Wy did I leave ? M said she. " Wy, for 
wot I could get ! " 

Is it surprising that the spiritual functions of the 
clergy are lost sight of? Thousands of East-enders 
claim help from the parson, not as their privilege, but 
as their right. Mrs. Totteridge is a particularly good 
representative of her class, yet she sent me this letter : — 

" I think it very hard that I have to take every penny 
of my girl's earnings and she has to put up with girls 
calling her rags and people in work getting relief tickets 
and when I ask for a ticket for food my name is not 
sent in and I ought to get it." 

Pauline was no cadger ; yet one day I caught her 
slipping into the free dinners intended for the very 
poorest children. " Hallo ! " said I, " what are you 
doing here ? Father is in work, isn't he ? " Pauline 
flushed a rosy red, but she put a bold, not to say brazen, 
face on the matter. " The dinners is here, and I may as 
well have 'em," said she, with a defiant thrust of her 
well-shaped chin. 

Mrs. Totteridge and Pauline both gave expression to 
the same sentiment, namely, that, whether in want or 
not, they were perfectly justified in getting as much out 
of the parson as they could. 

That is the idea. And it is that idea which utterly 
destroys the possibility of spiritual work of any real 
kind, and makes the East-ender indifferent to the 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 227 

clergyman except in so far as he can fleece him. How 
well I remember having my eyes opened to this un- 
pleasant fact ! 

It was in the days of my first curacy, and I was, I 
believe, as fastidious as could be wished. Academic to 
the finger-tips, I regarded with ill-concealed disdain 
everything of a practical nature. I was obliged to 
fulfil many distasteful duties. I turned up my nose at 
them, but I did them. My taste was most deeply 
offended by the weekly soup-kitchen. The smell 
positively stung me. The straggling queue of unkempt 
humanity filled me with false shame. Yet I was as 
convinced as could be that no one, not even a child, 
would identify me with such vulgar associations. I was 
to suffer a rude awakening. One day I was called to a 
house of sickness, and was waiting for admission when 1 
overheard the following conversation between two little 
girls seated on the kerb : — 

" Do you know who that is ? " 

" No. Who ? " 

" Garn ! You do know." 

" I don't. Tell us ! " 

" Wy, that's the soup-ticket man ! " 

The moral is plain to anyone who is not asphyxiated 
with the fumes of false benevolence. The parson, as 
philanthropist-in-chief, is " the soup-ticket man," and he 
has himself to blame if he is little else. He has done 
his best to spoil the East-ender, in whose estimation he 
is half knave, half fool. "If anything can be got out of 
him, so much the better ; he gets enough out of us." 
That summarises the East-ender's position. The sense 
that he is being made capital of is strong within him. 
" There goes the pennies from the poor-box ! " shouted 

Q 2 



228 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

a working-man, as a clerical friend of mine sped by on 
his bicycle. That was the notion — that the parson ap- 
propriated funds intended for the poor, and sported a 
bicycle with them. 

" Look at it ! That's where our money goes ! " cried 
an old man in the railway-train, pointing me out with 
the finger of scorn — the notion being that this gentle- 
man, and all other gentlemen of the same class, were 
taxed to keep me in idleness. 

" It's a very funny thing," observed Mrs. Kiddish to 
the lady at the fried fish shop, " that them Frees always 
go for a 'oliday dreckly after that there flare-up of 
theirs, the St. George's concert. It's a shaime, I say, for 
them to use money in that way, instead of 'elping the 
pore, as they oughter." 

Topsy, who was buying a " penn'orth " on her own 
account, loyally defended us : — " Shut your mouth ! I 
wonder how many times Mr. Free has given you 
tickets. And you don't suppose he takes the church 
money, do you ? " 

" 'Ow else does 'e live, Miss Spitfire ? " 

11 Do you think he has no money of his own ? " said 
Topsy, with a toss of the head. 

" Oh, yes, I suppose so," agreed the woman, mock- 
ingly ; " 'as money of 'is own, an' lives in that stingy 
little shanty. Wot d' you take me for, girl ? " 

Is it astonishing that the East-ender should not only 
be indifferent and ungrateful to the parson, but should 
actually despise him ? I am told that, once upon a 
time, clergymen were treated with positive respect, that 
men and boys would lift their hats to them, that women 
and girls would curtsey to them. It must have been 
long, long ago. In the East End, the " bobbing and 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 229 

scraping" days are over in very deed. Little Drayman, 
the Petit Chose, gravely informed me, one day, that he 
had written to his father to this effect : " Dear Dad, I 
see Mr. Free to-day, and he sends his best respects to 
you." The lad had no thought of rudeness. He merely 
expressed, in perfectly natural fashion, his view of 
the relative positions of the labourer and the clergy- 
man. 

I remember being absorbed in Lectures pour Tons, 
when Croly, one of our club-boys, came into the room. 
He was a slip of fourteen, just fresh from school ; and, 
catching sight of the title of the periodical I was read- 
ing, he cried — 

" 'Ullo, Froggy ! Parley-voo ? " 

Croly's unconscious impudence, however, paled before 
the studied insolence of our maid Clara, who, when my 
wife threatened to report her conduct to the " master," 
burst on my privacy with a flourish of flounces and a 
tossing of tumbled hair, and with a real factory screech 
cried — " Master, indeed ! Call that my master ? Good 
Lord ! " 

There was a lad in my club named Witson, a solid, 
stolid, hard-working chap, whose life was unusually dull 
and grey even among the dull and grey lives of his 
fellows. One night I called him aside and, in the inno- 
cence of my heart, asked him to stay for a talk. He was 
rather sheepish and reluctant about it, at first ; but I 
finally got him into .a chair, with a real cigar between his 
lips. For five minutes or so he puffed away in silence ; 
then, with a stretch of intense satisfaction, he murmured 
— " This is all right," — puff, puff, — "don't mind a good deal 
of this, sort o' thing," — puff, puff, — "knock off work 
early just now ; no overtime, you know. If you like," — 



230 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

he dropped his voice to the merest whisper, — " I'll come 
in pretty frequent. What say ? " 

I muttered some imbecility or other. But Witson was 
not a fellow to be put off. He returned to the charge 
again and again during the evening. It was late when 
he rose to go, loud in praise of my cigars, and very, 
very happy. I was dead beat. " Good-night ! So-long ! M 
he said. 

I was closing the door behind him with a sense of 
supreme satisfaction, when he suddenly reappeared. " I 
say ! I just done myself fine to-night. To-day's Satur- 
day ; well, if you like, I'll come again Sunday. What? 
And look 'ere ! " — I was pushing-to the door, but he 
blocked it with his foot — " Look 'ere, Mr. Free ! If you 
like, I'll come every night." 

Witson was no ill-mannered cadger ; he was merely 
human. He had no suspicion of any educational or 
social barriers. It never occurred to him that he might 
possibly bore me. I happened to be a man possessed of 
cigars and a comfortable room to smoke them in, and 
he was a lad who had a perfect right to enjoy himself 
at my expense. That was all ! But where did he, and 
others of his kidney, get the idea that I was a person to 
be traded upon ? 

From the spectacle afforded him, I should say, by 
the rivalries of his self-appointed saviours. Not only 
has there been an utter absence of anything like co- 
operation between representatives of philanthropical 
effort in the East End, but they have actually vied with 
one another like hawkers. The work has been attempted 
by the incapable, but ingenuous, rich man ; it has been 
attempted by the capable, but disingenuous, poor man ; 
and it would be difficult to say which of the two has 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 231 

done the more harm. The results, however, have been 
identical in both cases, namely, a condition of unparalleled 
disorder. Each one, acting on his personal responsibility, 
and forming a little system of his own, has created an 
artificial centre of activity, a sort of whirlpool of agita- 
tion, which, coming in contact with other whirlpools, 
has produced utter chaos. Church has attacked Chapel, 
Chapel has attacked Church ; and each of the various 
nonconforming bodies has, with one accord, established 
itself at the expense of every other. The very chil- 
dren have taken on the mutual antagonism. Referring 
to a dissenting school-fellow, a little girl once said to me, 
" She says yours is a rotten church." 

" And what did you say ? " I inquired. 

" I said 'ers was a rottener." 

In the matter of East End philanthropy, people are 
under the impression that they can do precisely as they 
like ; whereas their only excuse for doing anything at 
all is their power, and not merely their will, to help the 
East-ender to a better life. We have no prescriptive 
right to interfere with him, whether he is benefited or 
not, whether we are qualified or not. Yet if one of our 
own class is ever so slightly interested in working- 
people, or if he is hard up for something to do, or if he 
has more money than wit, we gravely inform him that 
it is his duty to go and work in the East End ! In 
Heaven's name, why ? Could anything be more pre- 
posterous ? Why should superfluity of money or time, 
or scarcity of brains, be considered sufficient qualifica- 
tion for a calling which requires special training of head 
and heart such as is demanded by no other profession ? 
It is conceivable that there are persons in Berkeley 
Square who are interested in Hampstead. Yet I never 



232 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

heard of sentimental Belgravian ladies, whose time 
hung heavily, driving up Haverstock Hill with the 
purpose of improving its tone. Haverstock Hill would 
object. At the very lowest computation, the East of 
London is as important as the North- West ; and — which 
is a point much overlooked — the East-ender objects to 
being patronised by the West-ender quite as much as 
the dweller in the North- West would. Unfortunately for 
the East-ender, however, he has no means of expressing 
his objection, and, indeed, has got so used to the buns of 
the philanthropists that he has come to look upon them 
— the philanthropists, not the buns : the buns are always 
toothsome — as a kind of disagreeable necessity which 
must be made the best of. So Autolycus floods the 
market with his worthless w r ares ; and the market, being 
otherwise incapable, smiles hypocritically. 

The direct result of religious and philanthropical 
rivalry is bribery in its grossest forms. Take the follow- 
ing as an example of the kind of thing that is going 
on all over the East End to-day. The Nonconformists 
" get hold of" a lad who has fallen into evil ways. The 
boy is induced to join several societies connected with 
the chapel — club, brigade, Bible-class, and so on ; and all 
goes merrily for a time. Then the secretary of the club, 
the captain of the brigade, or the leader of the Bible- 
class happens to offend him. He does not trouble to 
quarrel — not he ! He merely says, with a fine, com- 
placent shrug of the shoulders, " Very well ! I'll go to 
church, then." And to 'church he goes. In three months 
he is back again, church having hurt his feelings ; and 
the Dissenters, recognising him for a veritable brand 
plucked from the burning, make sure of him for ever and 
ever by bribing him to the top of his bent 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 233 

Individualism! Sectarianism! Bribery! What have 
they not to answer for ? When a " Christian " society 
give veritable pennies to the children of another 
Christian society in order to induce them to "come 
over " ; when " Christians " invade a parish, and, under 
the guise of helping the helpless, load with unmerited 
gifts those who already are being systematically assisted ; 
when inducements are offered to all and sundry to 
come and make a profession of religion which can 
have no root either in head or in heart, it is surely 
the sheerest hypocrisy to wonder why Christianity — the 
Christianity of Christ — does not make more headway. 

Nor does the mischief end even here. The divisions 
within the Church of England itself have immensely 
aggravated the evil case of the East-ender. Take that 
arbitrary classification of Churchmen into Protestant 
and Catholic. What could be more ridiculous ? Every 
Anglican is both Protestant and Catholic : Protestant, in 
so far as he protests against the claims and superstitions 
of the Papal See ; Catholic, inasmuch as he holds to 
primitive doctrine and practice. To create an artificial 
cleavage between the two terms is to invite the con- 
tempt of thinking men and the distrust of the unthink- 
ing. Yet that is precisely what is occurring at this 
moment throughout the East End. Differences respect- 
ing minor matters are being exalted by ignorant 
mischief-makers into serious divergences of opinion. 
One labels himself of Paul, another of Apollos ; the 
house seems to be divided against itself; the man in 
the street smiles ; and the East-ender makes up his 
philosophical mind to get all he can out of everybody. 

The root-evil of all such eccentricities lies, not in the 
sensational character of certain religious services, nor in 



234 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

the danger of the promulgation of certain religious 
doctrines, but in the irresponsible individualism which, 
recognising no authority, claims exemption from all 
law. Men and women, endowed with more business 
capacity than spiritual grace, are running their own 
little "shows" for their own little glory, pathetically 
oblivious of the scorn of the working-man, for whose 
sake they are supposed to be laying down their lives. 
To the man who has the eyes to see, and the honesty to 
speak of, things as they are, and not as they appear 
through the rose-coloured spectacles assumed by many 
of us, this sort of thing would really be heart-breaking 
were it not actually side-splitting. That anyone, un- 
cultured, ambitious, poor, and therefore particularly 
susceptible to the glamour of success, should be allowed 
to assume the position of a lord or lady bountiful, 
smilingly doling out relief provided by the " charitable," 
is surely one of the most surprising factors of our modern 
life. 

I recall the tactics of a certain Christian body which 
shall be nameless. It was during one of the late terrible 
winters that they emerged from their native obscurity 
as the redeemers of the East End. In common with 
other Christian denominations they had been entrusted 
with the distribution of funds contributed by the public ; 
and they combined business with religion in a most 
original manner. " Put case," as " Caliban " would say. 
I, a boozer and a cadger, hearing that something is to 
be " give away " at Salem Chapel, and not being above 
asking for it, wend my way thither, in company with 
some hundreds of like-minded brethren, on a Wednesday 
evening. My name is taken down, and I am told to 
present myself on the following Sunday night at six 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 235 

o'clock. In addition, I am cordially invited to a 
" Pleasant Afternoon for Men Only," from four to six, 
when tea and tobacco will be provided gratis. Such an 
arrangement suits me admirably ; and, when Sunday 
afternoon comes, I enjoy my drink and my smoke in 
spite of the religious talk of the gentleman in the white 
tie. At six o'clock, the tea and tobacco having come to 
an untimely end, I receive a pressing invitation to " stay 
to the service " ; and as I have not forgotten that the 
distribution of tickets is still to come, I do so. A hymn- 
book is put in my hand, and I sing as lustily as any of 
them. The gentleman in the white tie says, " Let us 
pray," and I put my nose in my cap. When the gentle- 
man in the white tie begins his talk again, I sit as patient 
as a donkey, always remembering the relief tickets. 
Then comes another hymn ; and then, at last, the 
thrilling announcement from the gentleman in the white 
tie that he is now about to give out the tickets, " or, 
rather, was," he adds ; " for, as the Gospel is now to be 
preached by means of a series of tableaux vivants, I 
invite my friends to stay to that service, after which I 
will distribute the tickets." I am disappointed ; for the 
evening is slipping away, and Tom and Dick are waiting 
for me at the " Bricklayers' Arms." A pretty time I 
shall get of it if I return empty-handed ! But it can't 
be helped. Into the " Gospel by tableaux vivants " I go, 
and endure a third spell of religious talk. For another 
half-hour I sit nearly as patient as a donkey, and audibly 
grunt with satisfaction when the lights are at length 
turned up and the thing is over. In my gratitude I 
even put my last penny in the plate. Then the gentle- 
man in the white tie gives out the tickets, calling each 
recipient by name. There are about three hundred 



236 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

applicants, only thirty-five tickets, and not a solitary 
one for me. I am naturally furious, and, remembering 
Tom and Dick, am preparing to give the gentleman in 
the white tie a bit of my mind, when he raises his hand, 
silences the babel of voices, and says, in the sincerest 
tone imaginable, " I'm sorry that any should be disap- 
pointed, but come again next Sunday, and no doubt 
you will be more fortunate. Now let us sing the 
Doxology." 

One plain word on that subtlest of all forms of bribery 
— I mean flattery, and I have done with soup-ticket 
philanthropy. To flatter the East-ender by minimising 
his vices and magnifying his virtues is a sure way of 
becoming popular ; and there are those who, finding in 
the daily offering of this unwholesome sacrifice the only 
chance of life, use it unstintingly. Such workers are 
too smooth-tongued. They are one thing to the faces 
of the people, another behind their backs. Afraid to 
rebuke their vices, they overrate their virtues, and, 
knowing that popularity will secure immunity from 
most of the penalties of living among an alien race, they 
make up their minds to be popular at any price. They 
have their reward. And so had the hypocrites of old. 

To refrain from opposing such methods of " compel- 
ling them to come in," with all its concomitant toadyism, 
vulgarity, and hypocrisy, would be in the highest degree 
disloyal to the spirit of Christ ; and, until some common 
basis of action can be found which shall be honest as 
well as earnest, and which shall pay more regard to the 
elevation of the working-man than to the exaltation of 
any particular cult, I fear the redemption of the East 
End is outside the range of practical politics. To gild 
the pill with bribery or flattery is to court and ensure 



SOUP-TICKET PHILANTHROPY 237 

failure. When the gilt has been scratched off, the pill 
will be discarded. The East-ender, no less than his 
more cultured brother of the West, believes little or not 
at all in the thing he can get for nothing ; but he values 
the thing he pays for. And Christianity will never be 
the power it ought to be in the East End until the 
system of giving everything for nothing has been finally 
abandoned as unscientific and fruitless. 



CHAPTER X 

CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 

THE reader of the foregoing pages will not be sur- 
prised to learn that Christianity does not " count " in the 
East End. There are eminent exceptions to the rule, but 
that is the rule. The average East-ender's indifference 
to, and ignorance of, Christianity and all that appertains 
to it are almost beyond belief. In my early days at 
Millwall it was an impracticable feat to secure at any 
religious service a " quorum," if I may be allowed the 
expression. Try how we might, we could not succeed 
in "gathering together " even the "two or three." It 
would be impossible to exaggerate the heart-sinking 
that would seize me when, on arriving at our temporary 
chapel on Sunday mornings, I would discover half-a- 
dozen tiny children, hand in hand, waiting for the doors 
to open. " There's our congregation ! " I would say, 
not without bitterness. It seemed to me so strange 
and terrible that Christianity should be considered no 
religion for strong men and kind women. 

In view of religious backwardness or shyness, one of 
my evangelists proposed a series of extremely simple 
mission services. I heartily concurred and provided 
him with some thousands of handbills. With these he 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 239 

called personally on several hundred families, from most 
of whom he obtained a definite promise to come to his 
first meeting. The good man was new to the East End, 
and was full of hope that he would have a crowded 
house. When the great evening arrived, his congrega- 
tion numbered exactly twelve persons, eight of whom 
were regular church-goers. 

Our Window Gardening Society caught on amazingly, 
and enormous quantities of seeds, bulbs, and plants 
were distributed gratis to its members. In the third 
year of its existence, I inaugurated an annual service, 
which thirty stalwarts entered into a solemn league 
and covenant to support, seeming really anxious to 
show their appreciation of the encouragement given 
them to cultivate flowers. " We shall have thirty, any- 
how 7 ," observed my wife, brightly. On the appointed 
day we got two. 

This appalling irreligiousness is one of the things it 
takes so long to understand. I had a notion, founded 
on previous experience, that a well-known man, who was 
both earnest and unconventional, might draw. So I 
invited the Rev. J. L. Lyne, the " Llanthony Monk/' to 
come and stir us up. At that very time, this popular 
preacher was attracting immense crowds of men in the 
middle of the day at St. Sepulchre's, Holborn ; but, 
although I advertised him unstintingly, a mere handful 
of people came to hear him. Millwall declined to be 
drawn even by his shaven pate and sandalled feet. 

Apropos of Mr. Lyne's visit, a significant story 
reached me. About half-an-hour before the advertised 
time of the meeting, one of my choirmen remarked to 
his brother — " I must be off, Sam. Father Ignatius is 
preaching to-night. There's sure to be a fearful crush." 



2 4 o SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" Fearful crush ! " echoed Sam. " Do you know 
Millwall, Alf? Why, if the Queen was advertised to do 
a skirt-dance, there wouldn't be fifty people to see her." 

Well do I remember the preparations I made for the 
first anniversary of the dedication of St. Cuthbert's. I 
invited several clergymen to preach ; I worked the choir 
up to tackle a special anthem ; I advertised our pro- 
posed doings on huge posters. Dedication day arrived. 
It was a magnificent evening. I was jubilant. "The 
weather won't keep people away," said I to myself ; " I 
positively believe we shall have a congregation." When 
the hour of service struck, there was not a solitary 
soul in church. Everybody, including the choir, had 
scampered off to see a procession a mile away. 

Nor were we Church folk peculiar in our failure to get 
people interested in Christianity. At one time a deter- 
mined effort was made by the Salvation Army to attract 
a crowd in the West Ferry Road. The men stood in 
the doorways, smoking their pipes with unstudied 
indifference ; the women foregathered at convenient 
corners, nursing their babies and discussing the latest 
scandal. A long-legged boy swung down the street, 
shouting, " Are you saved ? Come to Jesus ! " A woman 
cried out, " Wy, 'ere's the Army now ! " and a neighbour 
added, with a shrill squeal that was intended for a laugh, 
" Well, I'm blest ! Let 'em all come ! " 

Women are generally supposed to be more amenable 
to Christian teaching than men. I have not found 
them so. Men may be harder to catch, but they stick 
faster. When a man " gets religion," he is in dead 
earnest about it. Nothing will keep him away from it — 
wife, children, neighbours ; and I have known those 
whose lives have been made a horrible burden to them 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 241 

by the fleering of wife and children, to say nothing of 
neighbours. Once having begun the thing, however, 
the man sets his teeth and goes through with it to the 
end ; and not infrequently it is a very bitter end. 

Nor is persecution the only foe the Christian working- 
man has to contend with. There is a subtler and still more 
dangerous enemy, namely, kindness. He is such a vara 
avis that he is apt to get spoiled and give himself airs. 
In the old gin-palace days his very sincerity in irreligion 
almost compelled respect ; in the new church-going days 
there is about him a concentrated self-righteousness, not 
to say smugness, which is not always agreeable to con- 
template. The fact of the matter is that the shepherd's 
anxiety to draw the wandering sheep into the fold is so 
excessive that occasionally he oversteps the bounds of 
decency, and succeeds, not only in saving the sheep, but 
also in giving the animal an unwarrantable opinion of 
his own importance. Even so, it is marvellous how such 
a man, when his conscience or his heart has really been 
touched, will in good time come to himself ; and there 
is no better type of manhood in England than that of the 
East End working-man who has conscientiously em- 
braced Christianity. His nerve, his dogged determina- 
tion, his good-humoured tolerance, his serious devotion 
to duty, are admirable beyond words. 

With the woman it is different. Her religious re- 
sponsibilities are so easily assumed that they are quite 
as easily discarded. She is so readily converted that 
her conversion may prove worthless. Yet she, too, 
can be splendidly heroical. I have known girls scarce 
in their 'teens go through the fire of persecution without 
flinching. The married Christian woman is often a 
martyr of no mean type. Should her husband object 



242 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

to religion — which is extremely likely — the moment she 
puts on her bonnet to go to church, he dons his hat for 
the public-house. An evening of beer-swilling and a 
night of violence are sure to follow. So, having to 
choose between her husband's sobriety and peace, and 
the gratification of her religious instincts and war, the 
woman selects the line of least resistance, takes her 
bonnet off, and sits down to await her lord's pleasure. 

Mrs. Brummell's case was typical. Married to a 
toper, her religious inclinations were cruelly dis- 
couraged. " I was brought up to love God," she said 
to me one day, "and I would gladly come to church 
if I could." 

" And why can't you ? " I asked — not without sus- 
picion ; for I seemed to have heard the remark before. 

Mrs. Brummell's answer was a strange one : " Well, 
the only night on which he stays at 'ome is Sunday, and 
that he does because he thinks I want to go to church. 
I dursn't move while he is in the 'ouse ; but when seven 
strikes, and he knows it is too late, out he slips, and I 
see no more of him till past midnight." 

" But why don't you go after he has left ? " I asked, 
with unpardonable innocence, considering my long 
sojourn in the East End. 

" Why ? " She slipped up her sleeve, and showed me 
her bare arm bruised black and yellow in four places. 
" That's why." 

It is not easy to understand why the East End 
working-man should allow his children to be taught the 
Christianity which he repudiates. Yet he does so, and 
is, at times, not a little proud of the fact. On a summer 
excursion I happened to be travelling with the father of 
one of our little Sunday-school girls. The pride of the 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 243 

man in his daughter's devotion to religion was curious. 
Over and over again he told me how she would snuggle 
up to him with, " I'm going to church, daddy. Won't 
you come ? " " Yes, that's my little gel ! That's my 
Ida, that is ! " he kept on saying. He was so pleased 
and proud that I ventured to ask him whether he had 
ever yielded to the child's persuasions ; and at that he 
opened his eyes very wide. " Wot, me ? Me go to 
church ? " — he fairly sniggered at the notion ; " O' course 
not." 

While some parents are really anxious to have their 
children brought up in the Christian faith, others will 
not oppose teaching which " won't do 'em no harm even 
if it don't do 'em no good." One of my girls was in 
service, and her mistress — mirabile dictu ! — wished her to 
be confirmed. The astonishing fact was communicated 
to the mother. 

" I don't know as that's a bad thing for a girl," she 
indulgently observed, when she had succeeded in grasp- 
ing the idea. " When I was a young 'un I was done 
myself, and used to go to the what-you-may-call-it 
reg'lar." 

" The Holy Communion. Well, why don't you do 
so now?" asked my wife. "Example is better than 
precept, you know." 

" No, no ! It ain't in my line. But Polly's of age to 
judge for 'erself. She can get confirmed if she 
likes ; and I sha'n't say a single word against it. 
There ! " 

It is not surprising that the promise of the child's life 
is unfulfilled, and that the most appalling ignorance of 
things religious abounds among old and young alike. 
That little or nothing is known of the Book of Common 

R 2 



244 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

Prayer, goes without saying. To Mrs. Typum must be 
awarded the palm for, perhaps, the most extraordinary 
excuse for religious slackness ever invented. 

" You see, I am used to the old Prayer Books," she 
said. " They was so different when I was a girl to what 
they are now. But if you'd let me have a look at one 
o' them new ones, so I might get used to the alterations, 
per'aps I might be able to come to church again, after 
all these years." 

Ignorance of the Prayer Book occasionally produces 
some quaint results. One of my greatest difficulties is 
to get godparents to make the proper responses at 
baptisms. Having no idea of the meaning of the 
service, they are prone to wander from the point. So I 
have provided cards on which the answers for sponsors 
are printed in unmistakable capitals. The first god- 
parent who used the new cards was a stevedore, a rough 
giant of a fellow, who evidently felt his position keenly, 
and kept one eye on the door. By dint, however, of a 
friendly smile or two, I managed to hold him in. After 
a while, to my astonishment, the service actually 
appeared to interest him. He gazed at his card with 
an intensity which was most gratifying, and once he 
said Amen quite loudly and heartily. I was enchanted. 
Apart from the rarity of godparents of any kind, and 
especially of godfathers, it is most unusual for a sponsor 
to make a response. So I beamed encouragingly upon 
this model godfather, and, proceeding to the questions, 
asked him whether, in the name of his godchild, he 
renounced the devil and all his works. To this he 
should have replied, " I renounce them all." But he 
didn't. With knit brows and heaving breast, he stared 
at the print held tremblingly not three inches from his 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURK 245 

nose. I waited during a tense minute. The come-and- 
go of the man's breath was audible, his bristly chin 
quivered with emotion, the sweat stood in beads upon 
his forehead. At the end of sixty seconds I tried 
prompting. " I renounce them all," I whispered, and 
repeated the sentence again and again, louder and still 
louder ; and at last was rewarded by seeing the model 
godfather lift a pair of the most innocent blue eyes 
to mine. " I renounce them all," I said again, waxing 
impatient. The burly stevedore nodded with every 
sign of satisfaction, as who should say, " Of course you 
do " ; and then, girding up his loins for a supreme effort, 
he bellowed at the top of his voice the words of the 
rubric, " Then shall he answer and say," and swelled 
with pride at his extraordinary performance. 

Nor is the Bible better known than the Prayer Book. 
When I was preparing Cassandra for confirmation, we 
happed on the clause in the Creed about Pontius Pilate. 
" Who was he ? " I asked. Cassandra's answer was 
promptness itself, — " God ! " 

Scarcely less astonishing was Jenny Kilsby's dis- 
covery. Jenny was anxious to be a Sunday School 
teacher ; and, in order to ascertain how she was likely 
to handle a subject in class, I lent her a book, and bade 
her to prepare the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. 
The lesson was all about forgiveness ; and a warning 
story was added of an incendiary who, in revenge for a 
supposed insult, set fire to a neighbour's dwelling. In 
due course Jenny appeared for examination, all import- 
ance and nervousness. " Well, have you thoroughly 
mastered the lesson ? " I inquired. 

Jenny assured me that she had. 

" Good ! Now, what is the leading idea in it ? " 



246 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" Oh ! Just for nastiness," said Jenny, with a flash of 
unspeakable scorn, " that old man went and set a pore 
feller's 'ouse afire." 

" Old man ! What old man ? " 

" Why, Peter ! " 

That ignorance both of Bible and Prayer Book should 
abound is, perhaps, not surprising in view of the limited 
opportunities of the East-ender. But it will scarcely 
be believed, perhaps, that there are middle-aged people 
in the East End who do not know the Lord's Prayer. 
Mrs. Baccle was dying, and I was summoned to her 
bedside. Her mind was perfectly clear ; and I was able 
to read with her and pray with her. She caught with 
avidity at the closing supplication. " Ah ! that's an old 
prayer, that is ; I used to say that when I was a little 
gal, — ' Our Father, 'chart in 'eaven, — 'chart in 'eaven — ' " 
I prompted the poor soul pretty freely, but she could 
get no further. 

Mrs. Grapestone, who had been ill for a long time, 
collapsed suddenly at the end. There was no time to 
send for me. A thoughtful neighbour suggested that 
somebody should say the Lord's Prayer, and a small 
boy was grabbed out of the street and hurried into the 
sick-room. 

"Tommy, say the Lord's Prayer, there's a good 
boy ! " 

" Don't know it," said Tommy. 

" Arst him if he knows f Our Father,' " said the 
thoughtful neighbour. 

" Father's at work," said Tommy, w r ith conscious 
pride. 

There are two, and only two, points wherein the East- 
ender voluntarily comes in contact with the religion ol 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 247 

his forefathers ; and even there, it must be confessed his 
(or, rather, her) adherence is more of a superstitious 
than of a strictly religious type. I refer to christenings 
and churchings. Every new addition to the family must 
be christened ; otherwise, calamity will befall it ! The 
wise regulation of the Church of England respecting 
godparents is either totally neglected or else fulfilled 
in a fashion which would be profane were it not so 
innocently ludicrous, as the instance quoted above goes 
to show. With regard to churchings, no self-respecting 
East End mother would dream of coming out for the 
first time after the birth of her child for any other 
reason than " to go to church." She may never see the 
inside of the building at any other time ; she may be a 
rank Dissenter ; indeed, her morals may be as shady as 
her manners are seductive. These things make no sort 
of difference. Churched she must be, and churched she 
is ; and when, kneeling humbly at the altar, she drops 
her penny" into the little white bag, she is ready to 
depart in peace until the next baby is born. 

The men laugh at their wives, and stoutly refuse to 
be parties to such superstitious practices, but for the 
most part they are not displeased. Some day — who 
knows ? — when the revival of Christianity comes, these 
remnants of a forgotten past may be the nucleus of a 
great uprising of spiritual fervour. 

It is strange, indeed, to reflect that women who are 
most punctilious with regard to their children's baptism, 
not only neglect but are fiercely antagonistic to their 
confirmation. It would be impossible to exaggerate the 
difficulty I used to experience in getting my young 
people confirmed. What with the opposition of the 
parents and the laxity of the children themselves, I 



248 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

used to be well-nigh distracted. The omnibus destined 
to convey the candidates to the church was drawn up 
close to the kerb ; yet the task of running the gauntlet 
across the narrow strip of pavement was almost too 
much for all, and actually more than some could bear, 
so that flight of the indecorous kind at the last moment 
was not unknown. When, at length, the bolder spirits 
plucked up courage to face the music, they were greeted 
with cheerful remarks, punctuated with roars of laughter, 
from their friends of all ages. As thus : — " Wy, that's 
Rags-an'-tatters, that is ! There's a picture for yer ! . . 
O my! ain't 'e a swell! Look at 'is trousiz ! ... . I've 
a jolly good mind to be conferred myself." 

The East-ender's view of the Church of England is 
extremely limited and one-sided. His conception of 
her functions is entirely erroneous ; of her ideals and 
practical possibilities he has no conception whatever. 
In his opinion the Church is financed by the capitalist 
to teach the poor contentment. Therefore he is not 
enamoured of the clergyman, whom he regards as the 
slave of an obsolete system tottering to its grave, and 
only kept on its shaky legs by mean old women and 
ignorant children. The parson stands^ to him for the 
conservative selfishness of the rich and privileged, for 
the tyranny of those inexorable powers which have com- 
bined to keep him tied hand and foot to that station of 
life to which a cruel destiny has called him. 

Nor has he any better opinion of Dissent. He abhors 
its respectability and its sentimentality. If he be honest, 
he spurns its bribes ; if he be dishonest, he accepts them 
with mental reservations. Dissent strikes him as an 
attempt to silence the divine discontent within him with 
sensational claptrap and halfpenny buns. 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 249 

His Sunday newspaper backs him up in his scepticism. 

He is not yet sufficiently well educated to think for 
himself; nor does he understand that even a Sunday 
newspaper may lie ; but he is only too ready to believe 
that every new thing is as likely to be true as that every 
old thing is likely to be false. 

His doubt is deepened, as I have already intimated? 
by the amateurish efforts of the inefficient to redeem 
him. He laughs in his sleeve at their fussiness and 
ignorance. They amuse him in the same way as the 
antics of some lively little animal might do ; otherwise 
they affect him neither one way nor the other. The net 
result of our almost superhuman efforts to draw the 
East-ender into the fold is that he treats the matter as 
a joke and declines to be drawn. He has discovered, 
as I said, that the gilded pill is still a pill ; that we have 
tempted him by a pleasant outside merely in order to 
get him to swallow without grimace the nauseous inside. 
Naturally, he resents that kind of thing, and contempt 
of religion is the result. 

Moreover, Christianity, as we understand it to-day, 
is a new thing to him. The up-to-date parson, hard- 
working, genial, hail-fellow-well-met, fatherly, steeped in 
the principles of Socialism, full of faith in the religion 
he professes, is a new and somewhat disturbing element. 
He fails to understand him. History, tradition, the 
unwritten law, have all taught him to expect a clergy- 
man to be of a certain type ; when history, tradition, and 
the law are contradicted in the apparently worldly- 
minded ecclesiastic, who takes life cheerfully, yet is fore- 
most in helping lame dogs over stiles, the East-ender is 
astonished but not convinced, and will go no farther than 
to assure you that he is absolutely free from prejudices. 



250 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" But why don't you come to church ? " Picton was 
once asked by a lady visitor. 

" Well, I can't quite say," was the puzzled answer ; 
" but " — with a luminous flash — " I can assure you, miss, 
that I've got nothing agin Mr. Free, and I've got 
nothing agin you, and I've got nothing agin none of 
you." 

Even when the East-ender is inclined to believe, as 
he sometimes is, that the parson is real in his desire to 
do him good, it is as hard as ever for him to credit him 
with reality in other directions. When, for instance, he 
hears Bible stories, which are stories in more senses than 
one, solemnly read at the lectern or quoted in the pulpit 
as facts, it is not surprising that he is doubtful of the 
parson's sincerity. Or, again, when he reads in the 
public prints letters from clergymen denying the doc- 
trines contained in the Creeds, and at the same time is 
aware that these unbelieving gentlemen are legally 
bound to recite those Creeds regularly Sunday by 
Sunday, his belief in the clergy and in the Church 
which supports them is not strengthened. 

Only one East-ender in a hundred attends any place 
of worship, we are told. The church- or chapel-goer is 
looked upon as a crank or a hypocrite. Well for him if 
he escapes with nothing worse than a suspicion of eccen- 
tricity. He is much more likely, however, to be charged 
with downright insincerity. " To go to church for what 
you can get " is regarded, and rightly, as the sure mark 
of the beast. Unfortunately, the majority of East- 
enders can conceive of no other motive for a profession 
of religion. Consequently, all church-goers, good, bad, 
and indifferent, are involved in a common denunciation. 
As they walk down their street or court, they are greeted 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 251 

with such pleasantries as " There goes the religious 
man ! " " There goes the Christian woman ! " " How 
much do they pay you for doing it ? " " Church to-day, 
drunk to-morrow ! " and so on. 

Sad to relate, the notion that one is religious because 
it pays is not altogether without foundation in fact. The 
harvest thanksgiving, for example, is the only service 
which attracts to any appreciable degree ; and the distri- 
bution of the fruit and vegetables with which the church 
is decorated on such an occasion has much more to do 
with its popularity than most of us would care to 
acknowledge. 

Or again. Shopan was so regular in his choir attend- 
ances that I congratulated his mother on the fact. 

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Shopan, with a little flutter of 
maternal pride ; " that boy never stays away if I knows 
it. It's for his good to stick to his choir and his church." 

" I am delighted to hear you say so," said I, warmly, 
" and I wish with all my heart there were more mothers 
who took that view of religion." 

" They would save their sons many a pair of trousers," 
cried the good lady, triumphantly, " that they would ! 
With the money that boy gets from his choir, he hasn't 
cost me a penny for clothes for two whole years." 

Mrs. Shopan was pretty commercial, but Gyp was 
woj-se. This disreputable character was calling on me 
one day for something or other, when I seized the oppor- 
tunity of reprimanding him on his dissolute habits, and 
especially for boasting, as he frequently did, of having 
been convicted of drunkenness no less than thirty-seven 
times. " Like the rest of us, you will have to die some 
day," I said severely. " What would you do if you were 
to die to-night ? " 



252 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" What Bradlaugh did," he hiccoughed. 

11 And that ? " 

" Bradlaugh said, ' Loramercy on my soul ! ' That's 
wot Fd say — ' Loramercy on my soul ! - And mind you, 
mister, if I said it with the last bit of bref in my body, 
it 'd be all right, I should be as safe as the Bank of 
England." 

" What ! " I cried, " you think you would get to 
heaven by crying for mercy at the last moment ? " 

" That's my belief," said Gyp, making a compliment- 
ary duck of the head in my direction, and nearly over- 
balancing himself, — ".my firm belief, per-wided I 'ad a 
reverend shentleman to 'elp me." 

It is all to the credit of the honest East-ender that he 
despises such hollow mockeries and will have none of 
them. But, unfortunately, he confounds the good with 
the bad, and resolutely turns his back on all profession 
of Christianity whatsoever. I was in Millwall a year 
and a half before a man came to my services. He was 
a genial little chap with a cast-iron smile. He came, he 
saw, was not conquered, and went away never to return. 
Spankiron would bring his wife as far as the church 
door, and then fly into the darkness like one possessed. 
Many a man has confessed to me that " he would like 
to go in, but dursn't " ; and I have known young fellows 
hang about outside during the whole of the time of 
service, listening to the music, but not having the 
courage to enter. In summer it is a common sight to 
see groups of people in Cahir Street, on which St. 
Cuthbert's abuts, enjoying the preaching and singing, 
both of which can be heard distinctly through the open 
windows ; but the extreme probability is that not one 
of those persons has ever entered the church, save for a 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 253 

churching or a baptism, and that nothing short of a 
second Deluge would induce them to do so — and then 
they would climb on to the roof! Not until the fourth 
year of my work in the East End was I asked to 
give the Holy Communion to a sick person ; and even 
then there was some doubt about the bond fides of the 
astounding request. I am confining myself to the strict 
truth when I say that, in my experience, not one 
summons to the sick and dying out of a thousand has 
had a higher object than relief tickets. 

Facts like these speak for themselves. Christianity is 
discredited in the East End. The people will have 
none of it. Ministers of all denominations are regarded 
with suspicion and distrust. They are a class, and they 
represent all the abuses of class privilege, from tub- 
thumping to auricular confession. That feeling of 
class has raised barriers where none need have existed ; 
it has precluded the possibility of honest and straight- 
forward discussion ; it has created a terror of things 
religious, which no subsequent explanations have been 
able to allay. From the tub to the confessional, I say. 
It is a mistake to suppose that either method has 
succeeded in the East End. The man who wears out 
his wit and his voice in shrieking salvation to an amused 
but otherwise unedified people is regarded with as deep 
distrust as the coped and mitred bishop. He may 
season his preaching with genuine slang ; he may con- 
descend to the most vulgar ostentation ; he may try to 
blind his audience with a liberal supply of gold-dust. 
All, all in vain. As for the confessional, I have in my 
mind an East End vicar who drove the boys and girls of 
his parish thither like a flock of frightened sheep. What 
was the result ? As soon as his personal tyranny was 



254 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

withdrawn, most of those young people turned their 
backs upon Christianity for good and all. A young 
married woman, who in her single days had attended 
this clergyman's church, complained to me of the de- 
moralising effect of auricular confession. Her words 
were : " Evils were suggested to me that I had never 
dreamed of." That is so. The confessional is an insult 
to the nobility of our human nature, relegating us to 
the company of the swine. Its advocates are not con- 
fined to the ranks of the clergy. There are lay persons 
whose devotion in this regard is worthy of a better 
cause, women or, less frequently, men of unclean mind. 
Such persons incline to dwell on the carnal side of things, 
protesting that they love, even passionately love, boys 
and girls ; and in the minds of the children who are so 
unfortunate as to come under their influence, they 
succeed in stirring up all the dormant dirt in hiding 
there, and create a loathing for the very name of 
religion which bears its bitter fruit in incurable antagon- 
ism to Christianity. 

One of the flock of old Cricklethorpe was a woman 
whose husband had an undying hatred of religion in 
any form. Cricklethorpe, being a man of many excel- 
lent parts and very wide awake in matters clerical, used 
to confine his pastoral visits to hours when the husband 
was not in evidence. A day came when the poor 
woman lay a-dying, and sent post-haste for her con- 
fessor, who arrived in due course, and was in the act of 
administering the last rites when the husband appeared. 
He would not go into the room, however, but tramped 
the pavement in front of the house in exceeding wrath. 
When the parson came out, he sprang at him like a tiger. 
Two men held him back. A crowd quickly gathered. 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 255 

" Have you done it ? " shrieked the husband, struggling 
to free himself. 

" I have," answered Cricklethorpe, firmly. 

" Lemme get at 'im ! Lemme get at 'im, I say ! I'll 
teach him to go worryin' my missus, I will." 

At the word he broke away, and bore down upon the 
astonished clergyman like a fury. But the little man 
was equal to the occasion. " Stop ! " he cried, authorita- 
tively. 

The fellow halted in sheer amazement. " Well, what 
now ? M he said. 

The little man drew himself up to his full height, and 
observed with the utmost composure — 

" If you dare to totch me with so motch as a leetle 
fingare, I tear your goots out." 

The story teaches a plain lesson to all who are willing 
to learn. 

Yet the East End is not without belief of a kind. 
Clowers, my odd-job man, put his own position very 
plainly, unconsciously, as I think, representing that 
of a vast number of East End working-men : " No, I 
don't go to church ; never did, and never will. To my 
mind, churches, chapels, and parsons ain't no class. 
They're always squabblin' ; and if a feller has anythin' 
to do with 'em, he gets to squabblin' too, and turns out 
a jolly sight wuss than he was before. But " — he lifted 
his dripping paint-brush to emphasise his remark — " I 
don't deny as there ain't a Human Been somewheres 
wot's a lot bigger than wot I am." 

Many men, however, are not satisfied with the some- 
what indefinite belief of Clowers and his kind. They 
want facts, and facts they will have. My appearance 
in an omnibus or a tram-car has often been the 



256 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

signal for a fire of cross-questions as to " Who was 
Cain's wife ? " " Who made the devil ? " and so on. A 
small, blue-eyed chap on the knifeboard of the local 
'bus once gave me a poser. " Who founded the world ? " 
he asked, apparently addressing the universe. 

" God," I answered, promptly. 

" Right, mister ! " agreed the little man, nodding his 
grey head like a knowing bird ; " but who founded 
Him?" 

I confessed my ignorance, adding in self-defence that 
nobody knew. 

"Oh, nobody knows, eh ? " he said, sarcastically, as he 
screwed up one blue eye and squinted at me sideways 
with a suggestion of mingled contempt and pity. " Well, 
I know — and I'll tell you. 'E growed : that's wot 'E 
did." The little man turned his blue eyes heavenward 
in a way that was infinitely solemn. " 'E growed like a 
lily, like a lily o' the field." 

Occasionally the dormant belief of the East-ender will 
manifest itself in a somewhat surprising fashion. One 
Sunday evening I was preaching in the West Ferry 
Road, when a stranger stopped. He listened atten- 
tively for a time, then suddenly shouted out that I was 
a humbug for teaching the people to believe in a God. 
I was in the act of arraying a solid phalanx of incontro- 
vertible arguments for the discomfiture of my adversary, 
when the matter was roughly taken out of my hands by 
the bystanders, who, to my knowledge, never by any 
chance made a profession of religion. 

" Mr. Free's quite right," they cried, savagely. " There 
is a God, and we believe in Tm too. You shut up ! " 

That was one of my great moments. All the stress 
and strain, the disillusions and the disappointments, the 



CHRISTIANITY A FAILURE 257 

heart-breaking failures and the flimsy successes, sud- 
denly assumed their lawful place. It was a wonderful 
revelation. How these brothers and sisters of ours are 
hampered by the sheer inertia of their lives ; how their 
ears are stopped, their eyes darkened ; yet how, in spite 
of everything, they are seeking God, if haply they may 
find Him — in a flash it all became clear to me. And 
then, more wonderful still, I knew what my business 
was. 



EPILOGUE 

a I HAVE read your book/' remarked My Candid 
Friend. 

" How do you like it ? " said I. 

" As your friend, my duty is to tell you, not how I 
like it, but how I dislike it." 

I nodded resignedly, struck a match, and lighted a 
cigar (five a shilling). 

" Pro — ceed," I said, chopping the word in half, and 
taking three deep pulls and two shallow ones at my cigar. 

"There are things in your book enough to try the 
patience of forty Jobs rolled into one," declared My 
Candid Friend, repudiating the cigar-case I insinuat- 
ingly pushed towards him. 

" Well ! well ! " said I, for want of something better 
to say. 

" Your book is misinformed, sweeping, censorious, 
revolutionary " 

" Stop ! stop ! " I cried, clapping my hands to my 
ears. " Chapter and verse, for mercy's sweet sake ! " 

" You shall have them. To take the head and front 
of your offending first, you have maligned the phil- 
anthropist." 

" Not so ! I wage war against principles, not against 
persons. The exponent of a principle may be eminently 



EPILOGUE 259 

lovable, while the principle itself may be eminently 
detestable. I simply give it as my opinion that the 
whole method of work among the poor must be altered. 
The present system is obsolete, founded on pride and 
vanity rather than on the love of justice. It grafts on 
to the East End the toadyism of the village. Phil- 
anthropists of the kind I have in mind honestly consider 
that they have done their duty if, as it were, they allow 
the ' poor ' to kiss the finger-tips graciously extended to 
them." 

" Ha ! " exclaimed My Candid Friend, with a long- 
drawn grunt of dissatisfaction. "You must not be so 
severe. You forget how excellent are the intentions of 
these good people ; and if they " 

" I have been given to understand," I interrupted, 
" that a certain undesirable locality is paved " 

" Yes, yes ! We know all about that," cried My 
Candid Friend, waving his hand in his own superior 
fashion. 

" And the sooner we turn our good intentions into 
good deeds, the better it will be for the East-ender." 

" But, my dear fellow," protested My Candid Friend, 
impatiently rapping his knuckles on the table. " Look 
at what is being done for the East-ender. Why, I read 
the other day " 

" What are you doing for him ? " 

" I ? n exclaimed My Candid Friend, too astonished to 
say more — " I ? " 

11 Yes, you. The responsibility for the East-ender's 
unhappy lot lies at your door. Your insane scheming 
to get things cheap, your silly search after bargains " — 
My Candid Friend winced : bargains are his particular 
weakness ; " follies of that kind keep your brothers and 

S 2 



260 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

sisters at deadly work for a deadly wage. The pot of 
jam you buy for sevenpence, and the bloater paste you 
buy for twopence " 

" / buy bloater paste ? / buy jam ? " cried My Candid 
Friend, rolling his eyes heavenwards and showing the 
whites. 

" Well, you eat 'em, and it comes to the same thing. 
In their cheapness lies the proof of your degeneracy. 
As a follower of Christ, have you done your best for His 
little ones ? Will you dare to say, ' I know not : am I 
my brother's keeper ? ' to the voice clamouring within 
you, ' Where is thy brother ? ' Say so, if you like ; but 
I tell you that your plea of ignorance or irresponsibility 
is the plea of a coward." 

" Stow it ! " cried My Candid Friend. " That's a bit 
too strong. Your cigar has gone out ; and, if you can't 
be a bit decent, I shall do the same." 

I struck another match, and puffed away for a minute 
or two. Then I said — 

" Look here, old chap ! we'll drop recrimination, be- 
cause we're all in the same boat. Now, to get to the 
root of the matter, what was the Master's golden rule of 
conduct ? Was it, or was it not, ' Whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them ' ? If 
you were an East-ender, what would you want people to 
do for you ? Adopt the milk-sop policy of so many 
clergymen and women ? Give you a free tea occasion- 
ally ? Send you a ticket for soup, grocery, or coal ? By 
no manner of means. Why, you would want them to 
come and personally acquaint themselves with your 
work and your play, to take interest in your children 
and make the acquaintance of your wife. The problem of 
the East-ender's life is not going to be solved by * other 



EPILOGUE 261 

people ' — that's what I want to say. Nothing but 
personal devotion will save him. We may try to shelve 
the responsibility on to public bodies ; we may hire all 
sorts of persons to do the work for us ; ultimately we 
shall have to assume the responsibility and do the work 
ourselves. To the fashionable woman, who ' really has 
no notion how the poor live ' ; to the successful mer- 
chant, who considers ' business ' a sufficient excuse for 
neglect ; to the artist, the poet, the politician, we have 
but one message : ' Your riches will be sanctified when 
enriching others ; your powers will be justified when 
working for others ; your future heaven will be assured 
when you have saved others from a present hell.' You've 
got to do the work yourself, my son." 

" I don't follow you, Free," objected My Candid Friend. 
" You are talking Greek. Hang it ! How can I do the 
work myself ? " 

" By living with these people, and so making them 
realise the meaning of brotherhood." 

My Candid Friend sprang from his chair as if he had 
been shot. 

" Me ? " he screamed. " Me live in the East End ? " 

"And why not ? If I could convince you that we 
have infinitely more in common with the East-ender 
than you have ever suspected, I should have taken the 
first step towards reconciliation. I fail to see why, 
because you keep horses, and occupy a big house, and 
have a place in Surrey, you shouldn't pass some weeks 
of every year in the East End — not as a professional 
philanthropist, mind you, but as a citizen." 

" Horses and carriages and all ? " 

" Horses and carriages and all." 

My Candid Friend chuckled. 



262 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

" You are thorough-going, at any rate," he said ; 
" but you seem to forget that there is such a thing as 
Society, that there is such a thing as class distinction. 
We West-enders have our duties to one another, you 
know." 

" As a Christian, I protest. You have no duties to 
the West End which you have not also to the East 
End. A Christianity of accepted separation is a 
contemptible sham. There's no sense in it ; there's no 
reason for it ; and it is fraught with the greatest possible 
danger to the commonwealth." 

In my excitement I put the lighted end of my cigar 
in my mouth. 

" What did you say ? " asked My Candid Friend, with 
the utmost calmness. 

" I was about to observe," I replied, carefully measur- 
ing my words, " that an illustration might help you to 
understand my meaning." 

" Thanks ! " murmured My Candid Friend, ungrate- 
fully. 

" To argue from analogy, then. It is but a few years 
since Suburbia was supposed to possess distinction only 
by virtue of its being within easy hail of Charing Cross. 
In those days it was pathetic to observe with what 
feverish anxiety the young Thompson-Browns sought 
to prove that their house was twenty-seven feet five 
inches within the four-mile radius. But the new genera- 
tion of Thompson-Browns don't care the toss of a 
button whether it is or not. Their suburb is the centre 
of a civic life of its own. They have their town hall 
and their theatre, their local charities and their local 
scandals. Suburbia is no longer outcast : it has found 



EPILOGUE 263 

itself. And — this is the point : don't smile so super- 
ciliously — it has found itself in spite of the West End!' 

" Oh, it has, has it ? " 

" At present/' I continued, ignoring the sarcasm, 
u ninety-nine Londoners out of a hundred regard the 
East End as socially impossible. This is the view even 
of those who ' work ' there. But, within the next few 
years, unless I am much mistaken, the East End will 
begin to show how possible it is. You West-enders 
who want to survive had better assist it in its evolution. 
It is not above desiring your help. In its poverty it 
calls to you rich ones for wealth ; in its greyness it looks 
to you brilliant ones for light. If 'Society' turns a 
deaf ear to the East End, it will do so at its peril ; its 
very name will pass elsewhere." 

" Oh, its very name will pass elsewhere ! " echoed My 
Candid Friend. " My excellent lad, your wit is out, and 
so is your cigar." 

I threw the thing into the grate, and drew in my 
chair a couple of inches. My Candid Friend edged 
away. 

" Look here ! " I exclaimed ; and my voice grated on 
my own ear, so rasping it was. " Bear with me a 
moment ! We have cramped that majestic word with 
the shackles of conventionality. What is Society ? 
Are not this man and that, this woman and that, of one 
flesh and blood ? The hard-working dock-labourer and 
the hard-working Cabinet Minister, physician, merchant 
— are not their aims, and even their methods, almost 
identical ? You speak of class distinctions ; you create 
an impassable gulf between East and West. Madness ! 
Madness, I say. The same sunshine is over all. God's 



264 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

breath is in all. We shall all die some day, sha'n't 
we?" 

" There is a popular impression to that effect," ad- 
mitted My Candid Friend. 

" And the popular impression is correct. The gorgeous 
lady who ogles you from her corner in Regent Street, 
and the vulgar little trull who openly bids for your 
favour in the East India Road — what difference is there 
between them ? Nay ! is there any fundamental dis- 
tinction between the elegant damsel sweeping along 
the Row in her carriage like a flash of well-bred sun- 
shine, and the Millwall factory-girl, rough of tongue and 
light of heart, just out from her pickling and rope- 
twisting and asbestos-making ? " 

" ' Nay ' is good," murmured My Candid Friend, as 
if considering a nice point ; " distinctly good. Much 
virtue in ' Nay ' ! " 

" Don't be a fool ! " I exclaimed, irritably. " Tell me 
what you really think." 

"Ill tell you what I really think, then," said My 
Candid Friend, suddenly waking up. " You are talking 
the most utter balderdash. You are giving expression 
to sentiments quite unworthy of your cloth. You are 
propounding a theory of society which, to say the least 
of it, is impossible of realisation. To speak frankly, I'm 
sick of the subject. It's East End — East End — East 
End, morning, noon, and night. Why the dickens don't 
you leave the East End alone ? Why don't you let it 
evolve itself? In my opinion it wants no help from any 
of us." 

" * The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need 
of thee,' " I quoted ; " ' nor, again, the head to the feet, I 
have no need of you And those members of the 



EPILOGUE 265 

body which we think to be less honourable, upon these 
we bestow more abundant honour.' The mistake we 
have all made in the past is to think that one part of 
Society can do without another, forgetting that when 
one member suffers all the members suffer with it, that 
when one member is honoured all the members are 
honoured with it." 

" That's rational enough," exclaimed My Candid 
Friend. " Very well put ! But surely we may leave 
matters in the hands of those good people who are 
so nobly devoting themselves to the cause of the poor. 
The East End wants no interference from us, you under- 
stand — us West-enders — not directly, I mean." 

" Right ! And wrong ! " I answered. " It doesn't 
want your interference as individuals ; but it does want 
your interference as a part of Society. Nobody wants 
you to set up some little twopenny-halfpenny show 
of your own, and fall to banging the drum's hide in 
and whistling till you crack ; but what you and I and 
everybody have got to do is to put our shoulders to the 
wheel that's got stuck. Metaphor mixed ? Oh, well, 
never mind about that. The characteristic weakness of 
our philanthropy lies in its manifold mutually exclusive 
organisations. What is needed is a great scheme of co- 
operation. We of the Church of England must first set 
ourselves right, resolutely using the knife to every 
malignant growth. Then, without sacrificing personal 
conviction, we must throw in our lot with all real effort — 
real, mind you ! — assuming, in our corporate capacity, the 
largest possible responsibilities, and resolutely quashing 
the solemn trifling of vain and ignorant persons. Could 
we cry an amnesty, and, ceasing to compete, work in 
accord for ten good years, what might not be accom- 



266 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

plished ! If we would save our religion from failure, 
and ourselves from everlasting dishonour, we must join 
hands, even at the eleventh hour, with whatsoever 
things are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and 
lovely, and of good report, no matter from what direc- 
tion they come, or by what shibboleth of separation they 
may be called." 

For the first time My Candid Friend seemed 
interested. " Well," he said, " and what would this 
wonderful combination of forces effect ? " 

" Everything ! Valleys of misunderstanding would 
be exalted ; mountains of difficulty would be laid low. 
The crooked would be made straight, the rough places 
plain ; and the glory of the Lord would be revealed." 

" I wish you wouldn't quote so much," objected My 
Candid Friend. " Tell me in plain English what you 
mean." 

" I mean," I answered, putting the brake on, as it were, 
" that the East End, under such a scheme, would be a 
cleaner, comelier, and kinder place all round. The 
streets would be scrupulously clean, the drains absolutely 
sweet. No refuse of shop or smoke of factory would be 
permitted to pollute the air. The houses would be well 
built and commodious ; and for each there would be a 
garden in front, or at back, or on the roof. In the 
streets there would be shady resting-places, where the 
old might meditate and doze ; and enclosed spaces, 
furnished with sand-heaps and gymnasia, where the 
young might play. And everywhere would be fountains 
of living water for the refreshment of the body and the 
delight of the eye, and public gardens bright with 
flowers and comforting with greenth of grass ; and the 



EPILOGUE 267 

air would be sweet-smelling, as the Lord God made it, 
and not stinking with corruption, as man has made it. 
All the roadways would be direct enough for lightning- 
swift transit to and from the centre of London and the 
noble monuments of our national greatness, and broad 
enough for the quickly changing conditions of life. And 
here and there and everywhere, as these mighty tho- 
roughfares branched away, octopus-like, into the far 
distance, would be vast stretches of moor and forest, of 
hill and dale, in all their natural beauty ; and the 
niggardly philanthropy which satisfies itself with the 
conversion of a smelly churchyard or two, would be 
swept away before the wider recognition of human 
claims. In that day the worker will be honoured for 
his toil, and not despised ; and he will have scope for 
individuality, and space for recreation of body and mind ; 
and wisdom will be his to exercise the one discreetly and 
to fill the other worthily. In that day his employer will 
trust him, and will deem it no small privilege to lead him 
upwards and onwards, by means of books and pictures 
and music and dancing and the drama ; and the em- 
ployer's reward will be found in the more fervent zeal 
and larger usefulness of his servant." 

" And the inspiration for all this ? " asked My Candid 
Friend. 

"The life of the Master. For Christians and non- 
Christians alike, there could be no better means of keep- 
ing the heart strong and tender, the affections pure, and 
the aim worthy, than daily contact with Jesus of Nazareth. 
When the kingdoms of this world, with its councils and 
parliaments, its boards and committees, its wharves and 
its workshops, its schools and its universities, its nurseries 



268 SEVEN YEARS' HARD 

and its drawing-rooms, have become the kingdoms of 
our God, then Christ the Emancipator shall reign in 
London even as He reigns in heaven." 

" More quotations ! " grumbled My Candid Friend. 
" Yet," he added, under his breath, " it is a noble 
dream." 

" It will be a nobler reality," said I. 



THE END 



R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. 



Alrtt O fis'UO 



